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I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to the thousands of African Americans who had marched on Washington, D. C. at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The date of the speech was August 28, 1963, but it is one that will live for generations.
The purpose of the speech was to convince his audience on several fronts: he sought to persuade the black community to stand up for the rights afforded them under the Constitution, and he also sought to demonstrate to the white community that a "simple" black man could so effectively use powers of persuasion that they too would have reason to join the cause. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, a dream of freedom, of complete brother hood; the true American dream, the dream of full equality. King was one of history's most influential leaders of racial justice. His political philosophy and strong beliefs helped lead our nation to the racial justice we have today. The I Have a Dream speech is often considered one of the greatest speeches ever written because it was not only Kings dream, but also the dream of many Americans.
The speech inspired many people and it was a guide to how King believed America should be. This dream of equality, to which King dedicated and sacrificed his life, was a direct result of the inequality and discrimination King and many other African Americans experienced throughout their lifetime. In his opening sentence Martin Luther King stated that the event at which he spoke would "go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation." His words were indeed true, and they certainly fit the event. However, it is likely that the words he spoke there that day collectively qualify as the "greatest demonstration. " It is no surprise I Have a Dream is thought to be one, for Dr.
King uses numerous speaking techniques to present his thoughts in a more clear, persuasive, and vivid form. Martin Luther King uses several references to the well known to every American historical events and documents. The first point that Dr. King made in his speech was that of recalling for all the promise inherent in Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. He refers to the hundred years span as "five score, " recalling even the manner in which Lincoln himself had referred to the passage of time in his Gettysburg address. Of the Proclamation, King said, "This momentous decree came as a great beacon of 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 their captivity." Dr. King's allusion to Abraham Lincoln, one of the few political figures of American history respected by black and white alike, sets a tone of veracity. The black people to whom he speaks know all too well the conditions in which they have been living; the white majority who would also be hearing Dr. King's words likely would need the framework of honesty and justice in which they could judge the truthfulness of the charges that Dr.
King is about to make. His purpose was not to further divide, but to unite. Abraham Lincoln is the central figure around whom divisive forces had gathered; it was his purpose to preserve the Union. It is Dr. King's purpose to call for unity of the people. It is only within this framework that Dr.
King can make his next statement and still retain the white portion of his audience. Though ostensibly speaking to the black population, it is the white portion that controls the ability to effect any real changes. Without the allusion to Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King's statement that "the Negro still is not free" would have served to divide the people, rather than unite them in purpose and in truth. Dr.
King seeks to and succeeds in eliciting images designed to lead his audience into specific, emotional states of mind. He exercises the strategy of pathos in his statement, "Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all God's children." As he referred earlier to the truth embodied in Abraham Lincoln, so he now references a greater, even more enduring truth: that of the Bible and of the words of Jesus.
The reference here is to a parable recorded in Matthew 7: 24 - 27, that of the wise and foolish builders. One chose the solid rock for the foundation of his house, and his house was able to stand through the storms. The builder choosing to build his house on sand would see it fall in the face of a storm. Dr. King urges his audience to choose the solid rock, and then he defines that rock for them. Dr.
King appeals to logic. Employing the technique of logos he continues, "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force." With these words, he appeals to the black population not to sink into violence. The black community has dealt with violence for the entire time that the have been on these shores. First as slaves, then as freed but poor people, they have been objects of suspicion and mistrust.
Though the white society has laid on them responsibility for nearly everything that goes awry in their communities, particularly in the South, Dr. King calls on "his people" to rise above the reactions that anyone could dismiss as being only logical. Degenerating into violence would be "sinking to their level, " but Dr. King dares not say those words and his purpose will be diminished if he says the words or even alludes to them. The black community has lived with white hypocrisy for generations, but this is to be a time of healing, and the "eye for an eye" approach is not one conducive to full integration of souls as well as bodies. The white community has operated in hypocrisy, but Dr.
King calls on the black community to provide lessons in how to avoid that hypocrisy. Dr. King also employs the strategy of ethos, defined as a tool communicators use to present themselves as people of good character and valid authority. He said, "I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.
Though Dr. King's black audience would accept his character and authority to speak to them as he did, the white portion of his audience, the larger one that he needed to reach, likely would only see him as a "Negro" who failed to understand the larger picture. Dr. King averts that reaction by invoking the Declaration of Independence, symbolic in itself that he should use it for the black portion of the nation's citizens. His character and authority would be lost on the white audience; that of the Declaration of Independence - written through the combined effort of white men - would not. Making references to the government as a "Bank of Justice" that gave them a "bad check" King describes the situation of the African American people.
He proclaims that the "Bank" is not bankrupt and that it was time to "cash the check." These simple metaphors are easy to understand and are something that the audience can relate to, an appeal to Pathos. Another appeal to Pathos is his repeated reference to how their people have no rights. King is stirring up their emotions, in a sense "firing them up." King gains credibility by talking about a wide variety of beliefs. He speaks about God, our rights as people, and the rights given to them by the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation. His appeal to Ethos is very strong; King portrays his moral standards to be very high. King diplomatically portrays the ways in which his people have been discriminated against, he is tactful yet aggressive.
An example is the listing of all the things he feels discriminate against the Black community such as, the degrading signs that say "for white only", or the oppression of the south. Dr. King employed several tools of persuasion in his speech, certainly more than have been discussed here. From the speech I learned that Martin Luther King was a brave man for putting his life in jeopardy to give this speech to the American people and attempt to get the racist people to understand that there is not one bit of difference in white or black people, it is what is inside that counts!
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