One of the best speeches I have ever seen in person was at the University of Michigan in the late 1980s. The speaker was Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. My memories of its specifics are somewhat vague (and this is hard to look up), but here's what I remember as best I can:
Some idiots had accosted an African-American woman (a freshman, I think) in a campus elevator. They may called her a monkey; as I recall they tried to get her show them her tail. She was mortified, had to leave campus -- and the campus convulsed. What else could we do? We had to show that this was unacceptable but had no particular target to confront. We didn't know who had done it. We howled in the hope that wherever they were, they would hear, and regret what they had done.
Almost everyone who spoke out loud was deeply upset. Some students of color said that they feared a similar attack; others just felt the need to take a stand. And so Jesse Jackson was called to campus to give a speech. That speech was about the Dreambusters.
Some will always try to bust the dream of equality, he said. We must acknowledge that they're there, get past them, and keep at the work of creating a better society. Don't let them roil you, let them motivate you.
Jackson has used the motif of the "Dreambusters" since then (and it was probably not the first time he had used it.) I can't find a text of that speech itself, but I've found some others. Three or so paragraphs at a time, I've constructed a speech from him about this topic to mark this day.
Jackson speaks at Human Rights Festival at U Georgia, April 23, 2001
When I look on your faces today, Dr. King would rejoice. In many ways this is the Georgia of our dreams. Here we are together, a multicultural coalition respecting everybody’s rights. This is America at its best.
[In the American Dream,] all are under one big tent and none live outside of the margin because of their race, religion or orientation.
There have been many struggles between blacks and whites. But the real struggle has been between dreamers and dreambusters: dreamers of inclusion and dreambusters of exclusion. Dreamers must not let dreambusters break their spirit. When you change your attitudes, the whole world changes with you."
Save The Dream March on the Capital
Affirmative Action Is A Majority Issue That Benefits Everybody
Speech by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Monday, October 27, 1997, Sacramento, California
Dreamers and Dreambusters
Thirty four years ago, I remember the march on Washington as if it were yesterday. As students, we gathered in Washington for a multiracial, multicultural coalition of the faithful and the hopeful. We stood there looking for a brighter future. We stood there dreaming. We stood full of anxiety bearing the scars of apartheid and segregation, experiencing the violence of exclusion and marginalization, and yet driven by a vibrant sense of hope. We marched on.
Dr. King called America's highest and best self a dream. The American dream is a dream of hope and new possibilities. then as now learning to live together under one big tent remains the moral imperative and the great opportunity of our times. for this dream, we challenged closeddoor policies. We faced dogs, jails, untimely deaths. I had already been to jail twice trying to use a library and other public facilities. Then, as today, there was a struggle at the crossroads, a struggle, a tug of war defining America and determining its destiny. There was a struggle by the dreamers versus the dream busters. There were the dream busters who were demagogues of racial and gender fears, division, hatred and violence. but, the dreamers of hope and faith and inclusion remained insistent.
Dreambusting governors standing at school house doors is not new. They, too, have a tradition. Today, there is a generation of dreambusters who did not march with Dr. King. they were not at Montgomery. They did not march in Washington. They were not bloodied at Selma. They did not support the poor people's campaign. These propagandists invoke Dr. King's dream of an America where one day all of God's children would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin to justify an attack on civil rights laws. They suggest that Dr. King would support measures that would reduce opportunities of the historically excluded. They suggest he would not support a plan to repair and remedy past and present acts of exclusion. Dr. King had compassion on those who were left behind, or locked out, and a vision that realized that building bridges was the key to a future of shared security and greater prosperity. In Orwellian fashion, they rip King's text from its content and turn his truth into a lie.
What did Dr. King actually believe? He gloried in the progress made against segregation and racism in America, but he was no idle dreamer. He warned that America remained poisoned by racism, "which is as native to our soil as pine trees, sage brush, and buffalo grass". America must recognize "that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structures of our society."
From a speech at the Lorraine Hotel, April 3, 1998
It is true that they killed the dreamer, but they did not kill the dream. And dreamers keep coming. Dream busters keep threatening, and dream busters keep shooting but the dreamers keep dreaming, and dreamers keep coming."
There is pain, but we must turn our pain into power, that becomes our spiritual resilience. Turn pain into power. Turn negatives into positives. The will to struggle, the will to heal the breach.
...
We cannot just wallow in [King's assassination]. We must also protect his dream. One bullet cannot kill the dream just because it killed the dreamer. So right now one out of every five children in America is born in poverty, for all of our wealth. One half of all black and brown youth is born in poverty, in all of our cities, Baltimore and Philadelphia, in every city two new buildings, a new ball park and a new jail. We must make a commitment to reclaim our youth. That was a big part of Dr. King's dream. And that part of the dream lives on.
Speech at the University of Massachusetts, April 22, 1987
In our efforts to do right, those who have a quest for thirst and healing, no jail cell can contain them ... If we do good in the end we will prevail.
If we must fight, let us fight and save their farm and save their ranch and give them a chance to rebuild their lives.
We must not let the dreambusters set the agenda for our day. We must get good people. Most people in the world are yellow, brown and black, non-Christian,
young, female, and poor. That is the real world.
Some people have problems with Jesse Jackson. I am happy that he is still here, still speaking such words.