Martin Luther King, Jr., "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?"

and help welcome our distinguished guests of honor, the Reverend dr. Martin Luther King, thank you very kindly beginning by nazy mr. Williams, members of the faculty and members of the student body of Barrett High School, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say that you are delighted to be here today and to have the opportunity to take a short break in a rather busy schedule at the city ​​of Philadelphia to share with you the students of Barrett High School and I want to express my personal gratitude to the principal and administration for inviting me and for giving me the opportunity to see this excellent and enthusiastic group of students here at Barrett I guess I should start with a commercial and tonight we are going to have a great night in the city of Philadelphia after the spectrum.

I know you've heard of that awesome new structure called the spectrum and I know you've heard of that awesome new structure called the spectrum. I've heard of Harry Belafonte and Aretha Franklin and Nipsey Russell and Sidney Poitier and all these other great, notable artists. Well, you'll be here tonight at the Spectrum and I hope each of you go home and tell

your

parents to be there. make it a night for this great festival of freedom and I hope that you come too it will be a great experience and by coming you will be supporting the work of the civil rights movement now that I have removed the commercial, go ahead and say some things that I want to say very briefly and I'm being very honest.

I will be brief because I have other commitments. I don't have a tradition of being informed all the time. You know I'm a Baptist preacher. We can talk for a long time, but today I will be very brief. I want to ask you a question and that is

what

is in

your

life

plan. This is the most important and crucial period of your lives for

what

you do now and what you will do. Deciding now at this age can determine the path your

life

will take and every time a building is built, there is usually an architect who draws a plan and that plan serves as a pattern, as a guide, as a model for those who are going to build the building. . and a building is not well built without a good solid plan.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives and the question is whether you have a suitable, solid and solid

blueprint

, and I want to suggest a few. Of the things that should be on the plane of your life, number one on the plane of your life should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth and your own person, someone kind, don't let anyone make you feel that you are nobody, always feel that you are The counts always feel that they have value and everyone always feels that their life has a fundamental meaning.

That means they should not be ashamed of their color. You know that it is very unfortunate that in so many cases our society has stigmatized the color of black people and you know that there are some black people who are ashamed of themselves but do not be ashamed of your color do not be ashamed of your biological characteristics somehow you must be able to say in your own life and truly believe it I am black but beautiful and therefore you do not need to be loved to buy cosmetics that are advertised to lighten you, nor do you need to process your hair to make it look straight and as good as anyone else in the world.

Now in your life plan, make sure you have it there. a principle of someone 'not second in the plan of your life you must have as a basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor that you are going to decide as the days and years go by what you will do in life What your life's work will be and once you discover what it will be, set out to do it and do it well and I tell you, my young friends, that doors are opening for each of you, doors of opportunity that are opening for each of you. that they were not. open to your mother and your father and the great challenge you face is to be ready to enter these doors as they open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essay, said in a lecture back in 1871 that if a man can write a better preaching book a better sermon. I will make a better mousetrap than your neighbor, even if you build your house in the forest, the world will follow a beaten path to your door, which has not always been true, but will become more and more true, which is why I urge you to study hard to spend the night. I would tell you not to drop out of school and I understand all the sociological reasons why we often drop out of school, but I urge you despite your difficult economic situation, despite the situation that you are forced to live so many times in intolerable conditions stay in school and when you find out what you are going to be in life set out to do it as if God Almighty was calling you at this particular time in history to do it and you just didn't set out to do a good black job, but do a good job that anyone could do.

Don't just set out to be a good black doctor or a good black lawyer, a good black schoolteacher, a good black preacher, a good black bar beautician. Good skilled black worker, because if you set out to do that, you have already passed your matriculation exam to enter the Central Integration University to do a good job and do that work called among the living, the dead of the unborn could not do it . any best Falls you will love to be a street sweeper sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures sweep streets like Beethoven composed music sweep streets like Liam prices of teenagers before the meter Metropolitan Opera and sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say here lived a great sweeper who swept his work well if you can't be a pine tree on the top of the hill, be a bush in the valley but be the best bush on the slope of the real be a bush if you can't be a tree if you can't be a road just be a path if you can't be the Sun be a star because it's not my size you will win if you fail the best of what you are we always already have some noble examples of black men and women who showed us that human nature cannot be cataloged; they and their own lives have walked through long, desolate nights of oppression and yet they have risen in a sunken field against the clouds, nights of affliction, new and burning stars of inspiration, and so, from an old slave cabin in the heels of Virginia, Booker T Washington rose to be one of the leaders of America's network, lit a torch in Alabama and the darkness shone in that environment, yes. you should know this because it's in your own city, in a poor part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Maren Anderson became the best contralto in the world so that a Toscanini could say that a voice like this appears once in a century and sibelius from Finland I could say that my ceiling is too low for a voice like that from the Red Hills of Gordon County, Georgia and the damage of a mother who can't read or write roll and haze rolls up to be one of the great singers in the world and carries her melodious voice.

To the palaces and mansions of

king

s and queens, from crippling circumstances, came a George Washington Carver to carve out an everlasting place in the annals of science. There was a beginning in diplomatic heaven and then along came Ralph Bunche, grandson of a slave preacher and he reached out and grabbed it and let it shine into his life with all the sparkling beauty of it. There was a star in the sky. Then came Jackie Robinson in his day and Willie Mays in his day with those mighty bats and those quiet spirits. Jesse Owens came with his fleet and his fast feet, then Joe Lewis and Muhammad Ali came with their drunken fists, they all came to tell us that we can be someone and to justify the conviction of the port.

Flee from the salats and the black complexion you cannot lose the right of nature. They differ but affection lives in black and white the same and if I were so tall less to reach the pole to grab the ocean in a span I must be measured by my soul the mind is a standard of man finally and finally in your life The plan must be a commitment to the eternal principles of beauty, love and justice. Don't let anyone bring you down so low as to make you hate. Don't let anyone make you lose your self-respect to the point where you do.

Don't fight for justice, no matter how young you are, you have a responsibility to try to make your nation a better nation to live in. You have the responsibility to try to improve everyone's lives, so you must participate in the fight for freedom and justice. Now in this fight for freedom and justice there are many constructive things that we can all do and that we should all do and we must not indulge in those things that will not solve our problems. You've heard the word non-violent and you've heard the word violent It turns out that I believe in non-violence, we fight with this method with young and old alike throughout the South and we have won some important victories and we need to fight with it throughout the North because the problems are as serious in the north as they are in the south, but I think that while we fight against these problems, we have a fight with them with a method that can be militant but at the same time does not destroy the life of the property and That's why our motto should not burn, baby, burn, it should be big.

Oh, baby, bill, yes, our motto should be learn, baby, learn so we can win, baby, win and with a powerful commitment, I believe we can transform the dark yesterday of injustice and the bright tomorrow of justice and humanity. Let us continue to advance towards the gold of individuality towards the realization of the dream of brotherhood and towards the realization of the dream of understanding the good will that no one stops us. I conclude by quoting once again the man that the young woman mentioned, that magnificent black bard who is Now he has passed away. Langston Hughes one day wrote a poem called Mother to Son.

The mother did not always have grandmotherly rights, but she spoke very symbolic words for fun. Dirty, good, son. I'll tell you that life for me has been no. The glass stared, I had taxes, broken boards, places without carpet on the bare floor, but the whole time I have been climbing and reaching landings, turning corners and sometimes going in the dark, but there has been no light , so boy. Don't stop now, don't start climbing the steps because you find us a little difficult, but I was still climbing, boy, I'm still climbing and life for me has not been a glass staircase, well, life for none of us has been. a glass style but we must keep moving we must keep going if you can't fly run if you can't run walk if you can't walk crawl but of course keep moving