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I Have a Dream

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Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his speech at the DC Civil Rights March.
For other uses, see I Have a Dream (disambiguation).

"I Have a Dream" is the popular name given the historic public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. The speech is often considered to be one of the greatest speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.[1]. According to U.S. Congressman John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a modern day pulpit. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed [not just] the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."[2]

Legend holds that King departed from his prepared text and began preaching extemporaneously, but he had delivered a similar speech incorporating some of the same sections in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Rev. C.L. Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts.[1]

Style

Widely hailed as a masterpiece of rhetoric, King's speech resembles the style of a black Baptist sermon. It appeals to such iconic and widely-respected sources as the Bible and invokes the United States Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the United States Constitution. Through the rhetorical device of allusion (defined by Campbell and Huxman (2003) as "indirect references to our shared cultural knowledge, such as the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, or our history"), King makes use of phrases and language from important cultural texts for his own rhetorical purposes. Early in his speech King alludes to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by saying "Five score years ago..." Biblical allusions are also prevalent. For example, King alludes to Psalm 30:5[3] in the second stanza of the speech. He says in reference to the abolition of slavery articulated in the Emancipation Proclamation, "It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity." Another Biblical allusion is found in King's tenth stanza: "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." This is an allusion to Amos 5:24.[4] King also quotes from Isaiah 40:4 — "I have a dream that every valley shall be exalted..."

Parallelism, or "using the same initial wording in a sequence of statements or phrases in order to add emphasis, order, and climax to an idea" (Campbell & Huxman, 2002, p. 177), is a rhetorical tool employed throughout the speech. An example of parallelism is found early as King urges his audience to seize the moment: "Now is the time..." is repeated four times in the sixth stanza. The most widely cited example of parallelism is found in the oft quoted phrase "I have a dream..." which is repeated eight times as King paints a picture of an integrated and unified America for his audience.

Key quotes

  • In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
  • I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
  • 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.

Legacy

The March on Washington put more pressure on the John F. Kennedy administration to advance civil rights legislation in Congress, but in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination later that year, his successor Lyndon B. Johnson was able to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, followed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In the wake of the speech and march, King was named Man of the Year by TIME magazine for 1963, and in 1964, was the youngest person awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2003, the National Parks Service dedicated an inscribed marble pedestal to commemorate the location of King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial.[2]

References

  1. ^ Stephen Lucas and Martin Medhurst (December 15, 1999). ""I Have a Dream" Speech Leads Top 100 Speeches of the Century". The University of Wisconsin. Retrieved 2006-07-18.
  2. ^ "A "Dream" Remembered". NewsHour. August 28, 2003. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
  3. ^ Psalm 30:5
  4. ^ Amos 5:24
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