Black American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) addresses crowds during the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, where he gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.
I Have a Dream
Martin Luther King Jr. made the I Have a Dream speech on August 28, 1963 during the historical march for jobs and freedom at the Lincoln Memorial. The speech was a culmination of years of the civil rights movement with African Americans fighting for their equality in a society that only saw them as emancipated slaves rather than as human beings. At the time of the speech, Martin Luther King Jr. and other blacks were protesting the institutionalized racism that made it impossible for African Americans to get jobs. It had been years since slave was abolished and white Americans were yet to accept that the black Americans were just as American as they were.
The thing that makes this one of the most memorable speeches in American history is the courage and eloquence with which Martin Luther King Jr. tackles the systemic racism such that even the most racist people could easily recognize where the problem was. An important historical context for this speech is that the abolition of slavery did not end racism in the United States. Also, even with the Declaration of Independence stating that all men are made equal, the American leadership did not necessarily recognize the need for equality for black Americans.
The first thing that one notes about the I Have a Dream speech is that Martin Luther King Jr. was an educated man with a good understanding of rhetoric. Many black Americans at the time had some access to education but only in the schools that were designated for black people. This also meant that in many areas of employment, the black Americans would only qualify for the unskilled and low-skilled work since they were not as educated as their white counterparts. For Martin Luther King Jr. and other black scholars to have the impact that they did on the civil rights movement, they had to be exposed to a lot of education around politics and sociology.
Another important thing to note in this speech is that despite being a rather short speech, the word ‘freedom’ appears about twenty times. Freedom is a primary theme for Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech because his experience of emancipation had not been as wholistic as it would be if the black Americans were given the freedom to take advantage of existing opportunities that were at the time only accessible to white Americans. The use of freedom may seem pedestrian, but it reiterates the objective of the speech.
Also, in the second paragraph, Martin Luther King Jr. specifically uses the phrase ‘five score years ago…’ which alludes to Lincoln’s Gettysburg address where he said ‘four score and seven years ago…’ The implications of using the same words as the nation’s founding father allows the audience to tie in Martin Luther King Jr.’s patriotism and its plausible implications on the prevailing constructs of race and what it meant to be American. It is possible that this word choice was a factor in the effectiveness of the speech in the formulation and passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I Have A Dream’ Speech, In Its Entirety
1963
https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
- Vail, Mark. “The ‘Integrative’ Rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr.’S ‘I Have a Dream’
Speech.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs, vol. 9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 51–78. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/41940035. Accessed 3 Nov. 2020.
- This source explains how the speech impacted the audience. It also talks about the
style of the speech and how it was given.
- Smith, Andrew C. “Speaking My Mind: Going beyond the Thesis.” The English Journal,
vol. 99, no. 6, 2010, pp. 97–99. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20787678. Accessed 3 Nov.
2020.
- This source goes deeper into what Dr. Martin Luther King really means in his
thesis.
- Whitehead, Kaye Wise. “‘The Long Arm of Justice’ Swings from the Emancipation
Proclamation to the March on Washington.” Black History Bulletin, vol. 75, no. 2, 2012, 24–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24759674. Accessed 3 Nov. 2020.
- This source ties together the Emancipation Proclamation and the March on
Washington.