Martin Luther King, Jr.

I HAVE A DREAM! In an era when racial discrimination and public bigotry towards African Americans in the United States was becoming more evident, this simple, but powerful statement by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a beacon of hope for all African Americans in the country. In his speech, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King expresses his frustration that after a hundred years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans are still treated like second-class citizens. However, Dr. King also expresses his hope that the status quo will change and African Americans around the country will be “free at last.” Dr. King uses eloquent statements to appeal to his audience’s emotions and to see the difficulties and hardships that African Americans across the country suffer on a regular basis. Dr. King makes use of sound rhetorical devices to convey his message that “all men are created equal” and that racism should not, cannot continue if the nation is to prosper.

Upon opening his speech, Dr. King makes reference to past events: the Gettysburg Address and the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, works both by Abraham Lincoln that ensured that freedom in the United States will endure. “Five score years ago, a great American… signed the Emancipation Proclamation, [which] came as a great beacon of hope to millions of Negro slaves.” Dr. King does this in order to grasp his audience’s attention and to outline that after a century since the freeing of African American slaves, the Negro race is still treated no differently. He goes on to state that African Americans are “exiled in their own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.” This powerful message implies that no longer will African Americans sit idly by while their civil liberties and human rights are trampled on by racists and bigots or ignored by the government.

Dr. King uses connotations, words such as slaves, injustice, freedom, and hope, to appeal to his audience’s emotions and to stress the importance that public treatment of African Americans must be changed to accommodate the prosperity of our growing nation. “[Negro slaves] have been seared in the flames of withering injustice.” “This is our hope… That [whites and blacks] will be able to stand up for freedom together.” He also makes use of connotations to express that Negroes will not be satisfied in their cause until the walls of injustice are broken down. “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways or the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing to vote for. We can never be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Furthermore, Dr. King makes use of hyperbole, metaphor to stress