We live in a world where injustice, racism and prejudice walk the streets freely as imposters of liberty. We live in a world where the dose of decolonization is the same drug that is infecting the cells of the world like a new stronger adapted virus a friend of colonization! A place where slavery is dressed so modernly with such elegance we have accepted its new form!
Our forefathers and mothers, the warriors of Africa fought for our continent, yet today we have forgotten how much that meant and that the ball is in our hands. The spears and the guns should have long been wiped away from the face of the nation and we should be scoring for Africa peacefully. Yet we are filling the football pitch with more blood, cries, pain and fewer goals!
Today I remember Martin Luther King and adapt his speech for you, my beloved continent! A hundred years later the African still is not FREE! Still sadly crippled by segregation and seen still struggling amidst the vast pool of riches in Africa. A hundred years later the life of the African is still bound by chains of discrimination. A hundred year later the African still lives on the lonely island of poverty while surrounded in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity from his compound. The African is still languished in the corners of African society, and exiled in his own land.
I write this today to dramatize the shameful condition, to let us remember the powerful words of leaders like Martin Luther King who were mighty warriors for their nation and to prompt us to act peacefully. I speak out today for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all my African brothers and sisters. A hundred years later we are still been issued a bad check -- which comes back marked insufficient funds. We refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great hopes of opportunity of this great continent and we have come to bank that check and demand that the riches of freedom and security of justice be made fully available to all.
I have also come to remind Africa just like our forefathers and mothers did! Africa remember the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or take the sweet the drug of being neutral or gradual. NOW is the time! NOW is the time to rise from the valley and to lift our nation! To make justice a reality. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. In this legitimate fight Freedom!
1963 was not an end but a beginning. Today is also just the beginning! There is no business as usual if millions of people in Africa are suffering from the injustices. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Africa, until justice and peace are delivered. Africa needs to gain its rightful place. Let us not sleep to satisfy our freedom, or drink from the cups of villains. We must not allow ourselves to succumb to physical violence for freedom!
We must make a pledge that we shall not turn back, we shall keep matching forward in peace. We can never be satisfied as long as the African in Africa cannot hope and the girl or boy in the slums of Africa does not believe he has anything to hope for. So even though we face difficulties of today and tomorrow... I still have a dream. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the African dream.
I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live up to the true meaning of its dream.
"That all men are created equal"
I have a dream that one day the sons of Africa will be able to sit down together, all brothers and sisters of Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Angola, Ivory Coast, Benin, Senegal, etc., to celebrate the joys of a free Africa that will not be just economically free but has its people fully FREE at last! All countries soaring with the heat of oppression can be transformed into oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my children, your children, our children will live in a world where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of character. I have a dream today! Every valley shall be exalted. I have a dream that every crooked place will be made straight! This is the faith that I go back to Africa with, with this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood and sisterhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, pray together, to struggle together, to starve together and eat together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing we will be free one day. We will be able to sing with new meaning
Sweet land of liberty, land were my fathers died, let freedom reign!
If Africa is to become a great nation, this must come true! Let freedom reign!
Let freedom reign!
From cape to Cairo!
But not only that, let freedom reign from within you!
From every hill, and molehill!
Let freedom reign!
And when we let this happen, we will be able to speed up the day when all the children, black or white, Christian or Muslim, North African or South African, French or English... can say:
FREE AT LAST; Thank GOD Almighty we are free at last!