Happy July 4, 2012

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The American Dream

Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, on 4 July 1965.

I planned to use for the textual basis for our thinking together that passage from the prologue of the book of Job where Satan is pictured as asking God, "Does Job serve thee for nought?" And I’d like to ask you to allow me to hold that sermon ["Why Serve God?"] in abeyance and preach it the next time I am in the pulpit in order to share with you some other ideas. This morning I was riding to the airport in Washington, D.C., and on the way to the airport the limousine passed by the Jefferson monument, and Reverend Andrew Young, my executive assistant, said to me, "It’s quite coincidental that we would be passing by the Jefferson Monument on Independence Day." You can get so busy in life that you forget holidays and other days, and it had slipped my mind altogether that today was the Fourth of July. And I said to him, "It is coincidental and quite significant, and I think when I get to Atlanta and go to my pulpit, I will try to preach a sermon in the spirit of the founding fathers of our nation and in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence." And so this morning I would like to use as a subject from which to preach: "The American Dream." (Yes, sir)…

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/the_american_dream/