Martin Luther King's Speech In I Have A Dream Speech

On a hot August day, standing on a crowded platform, Dr. Martin Luther King stood before a multitude of men and women from all walks of life and drew them together beneath a single idea. For seventeen minutes, one man wove his words through the audience, seamlessly addressing issues that were begging for attention, assuaging those who craved revolution and pricking the conscience of those whose moral compasses were misaligned. Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream exhibited his mastery of rhetorical speaking and was successful in addressing each demographic in turn without excluding the others present. King executes this so flawlessly that each shift in his speech includes a deep and almost hidden statement to a specific faction while staying

When King says, “The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our own.” he is preparing the minds of the audience to extend from the localized issue of racial equality to human rights and freedom from all forms of oppression. Before he moves on to the overarching issue of human equality, King’s entire speech makes a temporary shift to a somber mood while he takes a moment to air the grievances of the Black community; injecting a lull that sets the stage for the crescendo of his speech. King’s repetition of the phrase “we can never be satisfied” allows him to inundate the crowd with struggle after struggle in a way that seems never ending. He does this as much for the Whites in the audience to gain perspective as he does for the African American community to feel vindication, and by simply acknowledging their troubles in a public way, he has given them representation they have yet to experience. By doing this he further solidifies his stance within the community so they will not feel brushed aside as he moves on to talk about injustice and human rights on a National and global