Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech

Martin Luther King is a respectable civil rights leader who devote himself to fight against discrimination and inequalities. King’s highly illustrative work, “Strength to Love,” reveals the deep meaning of “love,” which is not only altruism, but reciprocity, and the essential conditions, which he expresses as “Strength,” to love powerfully; this work strongly states that no matter what race, all citizens should be equal and be capable to love each other. Firstly, King gives foreshadowing to explain what love is. In the first two chapters, King illustrates that in order to love, people ought to build a combination of tough mind and a tender heart, named “nonviolence resistance” (King,8), and to persist in nonconformity but to remember to renew minds. Tough mind is “sharp and penetrating, breaking through

With a strong sense of social justice Kennedy began a movement of social change. With the generational and social mentality barriers beginning to be broken down there was a shift in perception amongst the American citizens. On April 4, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee, Martin Luther King was assassinated and killed. This led to race riots all over the States and a surge in violence. The death of such a substantial figure would prompt one of the greatest speeches Robert Kennedy produced in his career, furthering the race relations between white America and black America.

On 28 August 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King stood at the Lincoln Memorial with over 250,000 people gathered to hear him give his speech. His speech was “I Have a Dream.” He spoke about the problems with racism in the US. He wanted civil and economic rights restored. The first line of his speech was “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation” (Martin). Dr. King was there to talk about freedom.

Martin Luther King believed in racial and ethical equality, nonviolent protests, and love and peace. These beliefs compare to those of transcendentalists in that both value individualism. Transcendentalists encourage others to think for themselves, which will promote peace and harmony in a community. “People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right,” (Transcendentalism). Martin Luther didn’t conform to a society that said it was okay to segregate people based on race.

During the era of the civil rights movements in the 60s, among the segregation, racism, and injustice against the blacks, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial to deliver one of the greatest public speeches for freedom in that decade. In Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech he effectively uses ethos, diction and powerful metaphors to express the brutality endured by African American people. Yet his most important method of reaching his audience, and conveying his enduring message of equality and freedom for the whole nation was his appeal to pathos. With these devices, King was able to move thousands of hearts and inspire the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Opening his speech Martin Luther King Jr. sets up his credibility with his use of ethos, referring to the Declaration of Independence saying, “This note was a promise that all men… would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life.” He places the strong authority of the declaration on his side to show how the American people are in contradiction to their own “sacred obligation” and the Negros have gotten a “bad check.” A metaphor representing the unfulfilled promise of human rights for the African Americans.

The leader whose methods were most effective during the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr. His main goal during the civil rights movement was to have the whites and the blacks all come together to form equality. He fought for this equality through a nonviolent approach, which granted him respect from different races all over the world. Nonviolence also allowed the African Americans to achieve their goal. Nonviolent marches, sit-ins, and protests all had a huge impact in having Kennedy making a civil rights bill. This strategy would lead to creating peace and having all Americans live in harmony.

Dr. Martin Luther King uses rhetoric his “I Have a Dream” speech in order to persuade the nation to condemn segregation. His speech focuses on the injustices his people endured and the need for equality. Dr. King does not entice the crowd with negative messages but hopeful words. He utilizes ethos, pathos, and logos through the incorporation of his faith, analogies and symbols of Democracy. At the beginning of the speech, Dr. King makes use of ethos by mentioning Abraham Lincoln.

Martin was famously a pacifist, so in his speech, he advocated peaceful protesting and passively fighting against racial segregation. The main idea of his speech is that all people were created equal and, although this is no longer the case nowadays, King felt it must be the case for the future. He argued peacefully, yet passionately and powerfully. In preparation for the speech, he studied the Bible, The Gettysburg Address and the US Declaration of Independence and he alludes to all three in his address. The intensity of King’s speech is built through parallelism, metaphors, bold statements and rhythmic repetitions:

Persuasion of Martin Luther King, Jr's “I Have a Dream” On August 10, 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr delivered a speech that becomes historically known as the “I Have a Dream” speech. Thousands of US citizens of all races gather around the Lincoln Memorial in a joint effort in the March on Washington for Jobs and freedom, just to hear King speak. Martin Luther King, Jr delivers a speech that persuades the nation into a peaceful protest, and he does it all by using Anaphora, metaphors, and symbolism to convey a powerful message. In Martin Luther King, Jr’s Speech, he uses rhetorical devices such as anaphora to emphasize his point that “Now is the time,” By repeating this phrase at the beginning of his sentences he adds to the importance and urgency of the matter, in this case a march. While delivering this speech King has to be careful in the way he persuades the audience, and the way his sentences are portrayed.

The speech I chose is “I Have a Dream” by Dr. Martin Luther King. It is a historic speech. It took place in Washington on August, 23rd,1968, where a tremendous crowd marched to call for justice and the freedom of Negro. The freedom that they did not have even after signing the Emancipation Proclamation by the American president Abraham Lincoln. In his speech, Dr. king talked about his dream, the dream of Negro: to live equal to the white in America and to see their children treated equally to the white children.