I just want to say that despite the day off from work and all of the great sales, there was no excuse for assassinating Martin Luther King!!
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A transcription of his Historic Drasha [which I actually ghost wrote!!!]:
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. : Five score years ago [a score is either 20 years or the number of points, goals, runs, etc. achieved in a game or by a team or an individual], a late, somewhat great, tall, white dude with a beard, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, and who was assassinated like I am about to be, signed the Emancipation Proclamation - adding a smiley emoji for special effects. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. It was pashut a mechaye!!
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. For one, we are still called "Negro". Get over it and call us what we are - Sons Of Ham [and green eggs???]. Also, we DON'T LIKE being called shvartze. So if you want us to turn a light on for you or something like that on your Sabbath, you can say "call the Shabbos Goy" but not "get the shvartze". One hundred years later, the life of the shvartze Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. My wife tried to get a job as a Maggid shiur in a Yeshiva and she was turned down because she black!! YOOO!!! One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty or in the south Bronx in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity - except for professional athletes and corrupt Negro politicians who take extensive kickbacks. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land - like Klal Yisrael during Malchus Yavan. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. I sure as heck hope it don't bounce.
When the architects of our republic - a bunch of white dudes with wigs - wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, black men as well as white men, green men as well as orange men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of that PERFECT vacation overseas or basketball high tops.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. White is also a color but I refer not to that color. Laban was white and he was soooome conniving cheater. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. I totally hate when that happens.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. [I like the metaphor so I go with it].
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. Or at least give us cash!
We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Or fentanyl for that matter.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. Especially Ham's descendants.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. For me though it will be the end. And for Kennedy too. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. We will riot and loot stores - even if those stores are owned by Negroes. Our lives MATTER!!
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. Instead, let us drink refreshing Coca Cola together with a juicy cheeseburger from McDonalds. High calorie but deeeeelicious!!!
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity, discipline and advanced vocabulary. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Until we feel like it. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. Hey man, it ain't their fault they white.
And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. We should RUN, not alone but with a walkman, because we are faaaaaast. Black men always win the NYC marathon. And as we run, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as George Jefferson hasn't opened up a whole chain of dry cleaning stores and Louise gets off his case. We cannot be satisfied as long as Archie Bunker spews his racist venom. We cannot be satisfied as long as Santa Claus is white.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only or "no Jews or dogs allowed".
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three.. cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Yet we MUUSSSST be satisfied because as Confucious said: "Who is rich? One who is satisfied with his lot. Who is wise? One who gets over a 1400 on his SAT'S."
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations or because you is just plain bored. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells or are about to go in the slammer, unless your Jewish lawyer can get you off the hook by bribing the judge or something. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering - whatever that means. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, go back to Africa, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. "גם כי אלך בגיא צלמוות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי" said the Psalmist - a dark skinned Jew.
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a chaloim. Like Biblical Joseph I dream and frankly, I have this feeling that they will kill me for it as almost happened to Joseph. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, although some more equal than others. Women are also created but this is not about gender but skin color. No offense. I looooove women in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. A little too much as far as my wife is concerned - if you catch my drift.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia and the pink hills of Arkansas, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood and eat pizza, drink beer and play backgammon. From time to time the sons of former slaves should knock the other guys upside the heaaaad for what their parents did!!!
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom, justice and Batei Medrash.
I have a dream that it will not be the "White House" but the "Black House".
I have a dreeeeaaaaammmmm that I will be called not "Martin Luther King Jr." but "Reverend His Majesty The King [he/him]". With a crown and all.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the size of their boom box. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers with none of dem Jews crying "NEGIYA". I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. [I lifted that one out of the Bible!!]
This is our hope. Hatikva if you will. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. [Good line!!] With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood despite not having the foggiest idea what the word "jangling" means. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to steal together, to mug together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi - without turning a molehill into a mountain. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, fat men and skinny men, Goyim and Yidden, Protestants and Catholics, [but no Muslims, thank you] will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank the Ribboinio Shel Oilam, we are free at last.
Not let us sing - Avadim Hayinu, Hayiiinu .....
