Martin Luther King's
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964 Oslo, Norway
http://www.almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-nobel.html
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.
I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeing to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sunctuary to those who would not accept segregation.
I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.
After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time -- the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.
Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.
If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama, to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity.
This same road has opened for all Americans a new ear of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a superhighway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.
I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.
I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.
"And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."
I still believe that we shall overcome.
This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.
Every time I take a flight I am always mindful of the man people who make a successful journey possible -- the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.
So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief (Albert) Luthuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man's inhumanity to man.
You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth.
Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live -- men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization -- because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.
I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners -- all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty -- and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
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飛騨方言訳
おりゃ二千二百万のアメリカ黒人ぁ人種偏見に対する戦いに参加しとる時にノーベル平和賞もらうんやさ。
おりゃこの賞を断固としておこなわりょうる市民権運動と
自由の支配と正義の法打ち立てるため不思議な然りと危険性のためにもらうさ
たったきんのバーミンガム州とアラバマ州で兄ちゃんっていっとった黒人の子供ぁ水かけられて、
うなる犬にぼわれて、殺された事おりゃ思うんやさ。
たったきんのフィラデルテァ州とミシシッピ州で投票に行く権利おこなおうとしたら
リンチされて殺された若者をおりゃ思うんやさ。
そんでたったきんのミシシッピ州だけで四十以上もの黒人教会ぁ人種分離ぁだしかんぞっていう
人間かくまっただけで爆弾投げられて焼き討ちされてまった事をおりゃ思うんやさ。
おりゃまた思うんやけど貧乏ぁ沢山の衆を経済のはしごの一番低いどこへ鎖でつなぐんやさ。
そやで、おりゃ問わにゃならんのやけど何でこんな困難などきに、またノーベル賞の本質の平和も兄弟愛もねえどきに
賞をださはったかって事やさ。
だいぶ考えたんやけど、結論やけどえな、そんなどきにおりぃが受賞するこの賞は
非暴力こそが現代における政治的、道徳的問題に対する答えやぞって事なんやさ。
抑圧や暴力にゃ抑圧や暴力で答えんずと、それを乗りこえんにゃだしかんぞって事なんやさ。
文明と暴力は正反対の考えやさ。
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Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on a great battle-field of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us
-- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion
-- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain
-- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom
-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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リンカーン大統領、ゲッティスパーグ演説
於ペンシルバニア州、ゲッティスパーグ 1863年,11月19日
87年前におりぃだち祖先ぁこの大陸にやってきて自由を望み、
人ぁみんな平等やっていう命題を掲げた新しい国を作ったんやさ。
今なあ、国内が戦争になってまっとるもんで、そんな国、あるいはそんなやな
理想を掲げた国が存続できるんかって事が試されとるんやもなあ。
おりぃだちゃ今その戦争の激戦地を目の前にしとるんや。
おりぃだちゃそんな国の存続のために命を捧げた人々に安らかに眠りないよっていう場を
ちょびっと捧げるんやさ。
こういうことはちゃんとやらなゃだしかんさ。
そやけど、よう考えてみりゃあ、この土地を捧げるなんてことも、清めるなんてことも、
神聖にするなんてことも、おりぃだちゃようできんさ。
なんでやって言うとえな、ここで戦い亡くなり或いは生き残った勇敢な人達ゃ、
はやこの土地を気高いものにしとるでやさ。
世界ぃあ、おりぃだちがここで何か言っても全然、気にもせんし覚えとってもくれんけど
、ここで戦った人のこたあ絶対に忘れんさ。
むしろなあ、おりぃだち生きとるもんが、ここで死んででも理想を求めた人たちに
捧げられとるんやぞ。
そやもんで、以下に述べるようなこのまんだ成し遂げられとらん大仕事こそ、
おりぃだち生きとるもんに捧げられとるんやぞ。そりゃどうゆう事やっていうと、
一つにゃな、この名誉ある死者だちが最大限の献身で
もたらいでくらはった結果を更に大きょうせにゃだしかんし、
二つめにゃあ、彼らの死が決して無駄な物でぁだしかんし、
三つめにゃあ、この国ぁ、神の下に自由な社会に生まれ変わらなだしかんし、
四つめにゃあ、人民の、人民による、人民のための政治ゃあ決して地上から
消滅してゃだしかんって事なんやさ。
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