지금까지 배운 reading skills를 적용해 혼자서 긴 글을 읽는 공부를 해 보자.
이번에 실린 글은 흑인 인권사에 길이 남을 명연설로 여겨지고 있는 Martin Luther King,Jr의 'I Have a Dream'이다.
최근 허리케인 카트리나로 인한 참사로 미국이 다시금 '인종 차별주의'의 비난을 받고 있는 시점에서 40여년 전의 글을 읽어 보며 그 때와 지금의 흑인 인권 상황을 비교해 보는 것도 의미 있는 일이라 할 수 있겠다.
지면 관계상 전문을 싣지 못하고 상대적으로 덜 알려진 전반부만 소개한다.
인종 차별 문제의 심각성을 일깨운 명문이므로 글 말미에 제시된 사이트에서 전문을 찾아 마저 읽도록 하자.
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■ Directions : 다음 글을 읽고 밑줄친 어구가 나타내는 바를 쓰시오.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. 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 captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic 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 would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this 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. Now is the time to rise from th
