I Have A Dream Speech Rhetorical Analysis

“In expressing [his own emotions] with such powerful eloquence, in connecting strongly with the emotions of his listeners, and in convincing them to empathize with others, Dr. King demonstrated emotional intelligence decades before the concept had a name”(“Dr. Martin”). He demanded to end racism throughout the entire United States. King utilized repetition, metaphors, diction and rhetorical devices, that provokes ethos and pathos, throughout his speech in order to connect with his audience as well as to motivate them to stand up and fight for their freedom they well-deserve. One of the most used literary elements throughout Martin Luther King’s speech are diction, which leads to rhetorical devices such as, ethos, logos, and pathos.

M.L.K use of Logos and Pathos in his Writings Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for many things. He is a world renowned civil rights activist whose words affected the hearts of many. His marches united people race demanding the rights for all Americans in a peaceful, yet effective manner. His speeches drew crowds of thousands of people, whose lives were affected by his words. But how was Dr. King able to do so much with just words?

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.”

When coloured people came to cash the check, it came back marked “insufficient funds.” The climax is reached when King states the black people refuse to believe the “the bank of justice is bankrupt.” In other words, the blacks are fighting to gain the freedom that they had been promised. This idea draws concepts from everyday life to help the people, both black and white, understand the point segregation and injustice have gotten to. This image is potent because it speaks to the need for justice.

and Frederick Douglass were two of the greatest abolitionists, writers, and statesmen to ever exist; devoting their life's work to tirelessly fight for the rights of African Americans. During the span of their lives, the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" took America by storm and have left a tangible impact on American history. In these acclaimed works, Dr. King and Douglass both use appeals to sadness to elaborate on the vile treatment of African Americans, evidence-based arguments to expose the corruption in the American church and justice system, careful, calculated, and persuasive language to establish their credibility. It is clear that speeches, essays, works of art, and music produced during a civil rights movement is nothing short of powerful, provocative, and most of the time, painful; but they are absolutely

First, he mentions the dishonesty of a “one-sided idea of who was kept free” by the war if “the highest percentage of casualties” were African-American (15). Kerry made his speech during the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, and he keeps it in mind when discussing the unfortunate state of veterans in America, particularly black veterans. Similarly, it doesn’t escape his notice that the war America is fighting in a third-world country is much more violent and inhumane than one fought in a European country. He accuses America of losing its “sense of morality” because of its apathy to corruption and massacres such as what happened in My Lai (16). Due to such destructive war tactics, Kerry says that “America placed a cheapness on the lives of” the Southeast Asians that they were fighting (17).

Thurgood Marshall played a part in the change through his rulings on the Supreme Court and by helping defend others like on the decisive Supreme Court case “Brown v. The Board of Education”. As Marshall stated once "The position of the Negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment . . . In light of the sorry history of discrimination and its devastating impact on the lives of Negroes, bringing the Negro into the mainstream of American life should be a state interest of the highest order. To fail to do so is to ensure that America will forever remain a divided society" (“The man who turned racism into history THE LAW’If white supremacy has subsided in the United States, it’s largely due to Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court.”, par 10). African Americans were mistreated, viewed as lower class, and were not equal in the eyes of the people or the law.

Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist minister and social activist, and he was in charge of the American civil rights movement. He was fighting for human rights for African-Americans. His major claim in “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”, is to spread justice in the country and how the nonviolent can resist racism, violence between people. One of the important sub claim that he mentions in his letter is “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘never’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that justice too long delayed is justice denied” ( King paragraph 11). This quote is important because if people in power still say “wait” for justice to be fix then, that will be ‘Never’ be fixed.

These laws oppressed black people and restricted their freedom. Because of the poor treating of African Americans and the Black Codes, The Reconstruction period was a failure. Some people were very unhappy when slavery was abolished. Southerners were frustrated that their property would be taken from them and turned into citizens.

Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most influential African-American activists in American History and was a key participant in the Civil Rights movement, the goal of which was to provide full civil rights to all rights in America. MLK has written many, many speeches and letters in favor of the Civil Rights movement in America, the most famous of them being his legendary “I Have a Dream” Speech and the monumental “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. To attempt to gain support for his cause, MLK employs the use of emotional appeals, also known as pathos, and logical appeals, also known as logos, which aid to stir emotion and reasoning in the listener. It is more than obvious that MLK tends to tug at the heartstrings of his listeners with his emotionally charged language essential to his success. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses more powerful and plentiful examples of pathos in his literature, examples of which being his “I Have a Dream” speech and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, than logos due to the more powerful emotional connection they carry which can convince his listeners to sympathize with his civil rights movement.

African Americas were severely limited and punished just for the color of their skin. Taylor Branch captured the struggle of segregation and what it took to overcome it. He wrote about the things Martin Luther King did for this country and equality through race. “Rightly or wrongly, most attention has fallen on Martin Luther King Jr…Branches ideas were that King is the best and most important metaphor for the movement, but I disagree” (King). This peer reviewed article thinks that Branch should not have us Martin Luther King as a prime example for the equality movement, but I beg to differ.

“Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” Fortunately, King’s and other people’s hope was completed but it wasn’t an easy task to do. During the time King was writing the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, the African-American Civil Rights Movement was proceeding. Men and Women were protesting for the equal rights of “colored people”, to overcome racial injustice in the USA and Martin Luther King Jr. was a major part of it. He was one of the main leaders of this movement; this

Voting is such a huge thing because you want to be able to have a say in who you think should run things based on if they win or not. Especially if that person has the power to change what happens around you. The U.S. Government claimed they listen to what many African Americans and minorities had to say about what was happening in America because it was pretty clear that America had a problem. A guy named Robert Williams mentions in his 1965 speech by calling America “Racist America”. He states that so many African American are terrorized, murdered, maimed, bombed, lynched, raped, starved, sterilized by the states and imprisoned.

In this passage from Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King Jr. argues that equality for black must come immediately, not in 15 years, but right now and blacks need to stand up and fight for it. His tone on this subject is passionate and righteous. Rather than just stating facts, Martin Luther King Jr. makes the choice to make his argument based around the lives of a black girl and a black boy. He uses anecdote, appeals to logos, and repetition to make his point. Martin Luther King Jr. opens with two anecdotes, one about a young black girl's life in Birmingham and another about a young black boy’s life in Harlem.

Martin Luther King Martin Luther King’s rhetoric speech “I Have a Dream” given in 1693, March on Washington, has noticeable different rhetorical devices that set this speech apart. Devices that Martin Luther King used to become the voice of thousands of people, making his beliefs immortal throughout the years. As for today, society embraces his ideas and he is, until now, the voice of those who could not stand up for themselves. He has such a good way to convert what he sees and believes into words that will later share a message to the word.