I Have a Dream Analysis
This is a speech Martin Luther King gave and it is recognized across the globe to be among the greatest speeches ever given. The speech dates back to over 40 years. It was delivered in the month of August in 1963 and the venue was at Lincoln Memorial steps (Presentation Magazine 2013).
Martin Luther was very persuading in his speech. He had a soaring rhetoric demand for racial justice as well as society, which was integrated, and this was considered to be the mantra describing the black community. The mantra has become so familiar to the subsequent American generations just like the Independence Declaration of the United States of America. His words were self-evident to the fact that they shed light for the understanding of the social as well as the political upheaval as at that time and gave a vocabulary for the nation to be able to express the happenings. The message that was core in the whole speech was that of all people being created equal. However, this was not exhibited in the US during that time Luther had a feeling that it was to be true in the future. The manner with which he argued was so passionate and very powerful (Presentation Magazine 2013).
A detailed research preceded Luther’s speech. As it depicted in his speech, he did refer the Independence Declaration of the United States of America, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as well as the Bible. The speech can also be described as poetical, political treatise and an improvised sermon characterized by imagery and strong biblical language. Frequent repetition, rhythm and alliteration are features well utilized throughout the speech to drive key points home.
Three core objectives are focused on in the speech as this analysis tries to examine. They include examining the qualities that make it highly persuasive, analyzing some of the stylist elements in the speech and lastly illustration on how classical oration patterns are adhered to (Washington 1993).
Further, the speech can be divided into two main parts with the first half portraying not a well thought out American dream; rather it is a depiction of a furious nightmare of the American racial injustice. Through a series of well-detailed paragraphs, the call for action is well amplified.
He makes very startling remarks as he delivers his speech. He says that it has reached a time when Americans should be reminded of the stern urgency of that moment. Further, he argues that it is not the right moment to be engaging in the slow progresses in the realization of changes in the way the situation is in the country. He rather sees that as the correct time to actualize the democratic promises. He says that, they should shun segregation and embrace the sunlit racial justice paths. He continues to say that the time to open opportunity doors for all the children of God. Therefore, this shows that he believes in what was in the Independence Declaration of the United States of America that all people were made equal by the creator who is God. He sees that as the opportune time to save the country from the racial injustices quick sands and anchor it on a strong brotherhood.
Martin Luther says that that to solve the problem at hand, there should be no turning back. If they have to walk, they should make a pledge and then march ahead. He says that, some happenings in the society are causing a lot of dissatisfaction. He continues to say that there can never be satisfaction when the Negro ever remains the victim of the police brutality horrors, when if someone of the black community is tired cannot be accommodated in the highway motels and the city hotels, when the mobility of a black person is from a small to a large ghetto, when a black person in Mississippi is not allowed to vote and those Negro in the region of New York have the believe that there is nothing of importance to vote for. So there can never be satisfaction, not until justice starts to trickle down just like waters and becomes as righteousness as a powerful stream (Presentation Magazine 2013)
In the second part, Luther tries to paint a dream for a better future characterized by integration and racial harmony. The most outstanding paragraph bears phrase “I have a dream” which is repeated many times in the speech to amplify Luther’s inspirational concepts.
Luther says that, he still has a dream. A dream that is deeply engraved in the American values that despite the frustrations and difficulties they are faced with at that particular moment. He dreams that a day will come that will see the nation rising up to live up to the meaning of the historical creed stating that ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal’. He has a dream that a day will come when sons of the former slaves and those of the slave owners will sit together as brothers on the Georgia’s red hills. He still says that he has a dream that a day will come when Mississippi State will undergo transformation and become an oasis of justice and freedom (Presentation Magazine 2013).
He continues to say that he dreams that a day will come when his four young ones will be judged by what their character contains and not their skin color; I quote “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Again, he says that, it is in his dream that in of the Alabama State, whose governor was by that time characterized by nullifying ideologies, will one day undergo a transformation and have a situation whereby the black and white kids co-exist peacefully (Presentation Magazine 2013).
Luther closes his series of dreams by saying and I quote “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, and rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together”.
It is worth noting that Luther’s speech drives a strong message to the white people and through this, he is hinting a revolution. The words he uses throughout the speech are mostly concerned about peace and they offer a vision to all that could deem it necessary. Finalizing his speech, he highlights freedom through a passage with that orientation. He says that, the day that he foresees is the one where the children of God will voice a song portraying a renewed meaning; “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring” (Presentation Magazine 2013).
He believed that, for America to emerge as strong nation, his dreams must become real. So says that freedom should ring from New Hampshire’s prodigious hilltops, from New York’s mighty mountains, from Pennsylvania’s heightening Alleghenies, from Colorado’s snowcapped Rockies, from California’s curvaceous peaks, from Georgia’s Stone Mountain, from Tennessee’s Lookout Mountain, from the hills of Mississippi and the freedom ring from all the mountainsides (Presentation Magazine 2013).
He concludes by saying that when the freedom is allowed to ring from every hamlet and village, from every city and every state, then ability to hasten the anticipated day of freedom for all God’s children will be real. In this last part of his speech, the word freedom is repeated many times for it is the core reason on which his speech is embedded.
References
Presentation Magazine, ‘Analysis of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech’, 2013, Web, http://www.presentationmagazine.com/analysis-of-martin-luther-kings-i-have-a-dream-speech-8059.htm
Washington A., ‘I have a dream, A rhetoric Analysis’, 1993, Web ttp://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41068415?uid=2& uid=4&Sid=21102205408387
