And when this happens, 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, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

When we let 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, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.

Soon comes the day all shall be free. Even you, and even me. Soon comes the day all shall die. Surely you, but never I.

Some day we shall all be free. Racial hatred will die out; citizenship will be important but humanity as a whole much more so. Boundaries and territories will assume their rightful place in man's thinking, but goodwill and international understanding will matter more. Religious differences and sectarian dislikes must eventually vanish...

"We are going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. So however difficult it is during this period, however difficult it is to continue to live with the agony and the continued existence of racism, however difficult it is to live amidst the constant hurt, the constant insult and the constant disrespect, I can still sing we shall overcome. We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right. "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." Yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right. "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children all over this nation - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, We are Free At Last.

There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow
Just you wait and see.
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow
When the world is free.

We shall be free, just as our fathers were.

Our freedom is sweet. It will be sweeter when we are all free.

As soon as this is over we'll go home
To plant the seeds of justice in our bones,
To watch the children growing and see the women sewing.
There'll be laughter when the bells of freedom ring.

Here at last
We shall be free;
the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.

You are the weakest and the least, and the last to be redeemed.... You will be freed, when man will rise above the earthly, when human worms will turn into human eagles.

It is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.