I Have a Dream: Rhetorical Analysis Essay

I Have a Dream Analysis

Martin Luther King was one of the most influential people of all time. He was the leader of the African American civil rights movement. I Have a Dream, which was one of the greatest speeches of all time and especially during the civil rights movement, was spoken by King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was not an accident that the speech was played out there. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Declaration one hundred years before. The declaration was supposed to bring equality to the American Society and bring whites and blacks together as one, but that promise was never a reality among our society during that time. Kings speech was to convey the wrongful discrimination of the black race and that all races should be treated as equals. The tone and the way he used rhetoric appeals in this speech was to capture the attention of his audience and let them feel the sadness that he feels because of this racism, and indeed it did. There are three appeals of persuasion, ethos, logos, and pathos. King incorporated these appeals into his speech with great precision. Without the use of these appeals, Kings speech would not have been as powerful.

King used ethos in his speech. Ethos is the credibility and reputation of the speaker. He was a well-educated and well known activist in the Civil Rights Movement. This made him very confident in what he was saying throughout the speech. He had much experience in what he was relaying to his audience because he also experienced the inequality and segregation that his fellow African Americans had faced throughout time. He stated the facts about the way African Americans were treated with visual examples, such as coming from tiny jail cells, not being able to gain lodging to motels off the highways, and from areas where their quest for freedom left them battered by the storms of persecution. This speech was a precursor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Out of the three appeals of rhetoric speech, King used logos as his main one. Logos is a way of speech to convey beliefs or values into his speech to grab the listeners attention. He quoted parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to support his argument to the American Society, not only to the ones that were present, but also to the ones that were sitting at home watching it on the television. In the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, it clearly states that every man, black men and white men, deserves the same respect and independence. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, King stated, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked insufficient funds. People are able to relate to this powerful message, from King, because everyone knows the tragedy of receiving a note that they cant cash.

Last but not least is the pathos appeal. This is when the speaker using emotion to capture the attention of their audience. King did a fantastic job using this appeal. He talked about the suffering of the black race and even how his own children were sufferers of segregation, racial injustice, and inequality. This hit the hearts of millions that watched him address this speech. He didnt just talk from his own heart, but of those all over the world. He spoke about liberty, justice, and freedom for all races. For example, he started to sing a song towards the end of his speech, This will be the day when all of Gods children will be able to sing with a new meaning, my country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing...Let freedom ring!.

Martin Luther Kings speech, I Have a Dream, is one of the most well known speeches of all time. I Have a Dream was so influential across America, that thousands of people started changing their ways and started accepting that all races are humans and that we should all be treated with equality.

References

King Jr., M (1963). I have a Dream. American Rhetoric. Retrieved from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm