Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to the
thousands of African Americans who had marched on Washington, D.C. at
the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The date of the speech was
August 28, 1963, but it is one that will live for generations. Of
course his purpose was to convince his audience on several fronts: he
sought to persuade the black community to stand up for the rights
afforded them under the Constitution, and he also sought to
demonstrate to the white community that a "simple" black man could so
effectively use powers of persuasion that they too would have reason
to join the cause.
He stated in his opening sentence that the event at which he spoke
would "go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in
the history of our nation". His words were indeed true, and they
certainly fit the event.
The first point that Dr. King made in his speech was that of recalling
for all the promise inherent in Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation. He refers to the hundred years span as "five score,"
recalling even the manner in which Lincoln himself had referred to the
passage of time in his Gettysburg address. Of the Proclamation, King
said, "This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of
withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long
night of their captivity". Dr. King's allusion to Abraham Lincoln,
one of the few political figures of American history respected by
black and white alike, sets a tone of veracity. The black people to
whom he speaks know all too well the conditi...
... middle of paper ...
...;
King portrays his moral standards to be very high. King diplomatically
portrays the ways in which his people have been discriminated against,
he is tactful yet aggressive. An example is the listing of all the
things he feels discriminate against the Black community such as, the
degrading signs that say "for white only", or the oppression of the
south.
Dr. King employed several tools of persuasion in his speech, certainly
more than have been discussed here. He did indeed present an example
of what could qualify as the "greatest demonstration" of arguments for
true freedom for all Americans. He employed the techniques of ethos,
pathos and logos, and did it with such skill that his audience likely
was only aware of a steering toward unity, rather than that of the
methods that he used in his persuasive technique.