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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King's Speech

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Throughout the world's history, many great and impactful leaders share an important connection: the ability to connect with an audience. From presidential inauguration speeches to ones for civil rights, people still look back to examine them today. Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. may have given one of the most famous speeches in the United States history, "I Have a Dream." Given on August 28th, 1963, over 250,000 people attended his speech in Washington, D.C. As a 17-minute speech in a nearly 3-hour long program, King was determined to make an impression. He begins his speech by alluding to former president Abraham Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow …show more content…

Furthermore, by using a hopeful yet confrontational tone throughout his speech, he fills the audience with hope as well as a sense of purpose. Examples of his vocabulary choices that portray this tone include "momentous," "invigorating," "seared," and "withering," creating a palpable picture of injustice and the plans he has to fix it. Additionally, he uses repetition in multiple cases. For example, he repeats the namesake of his speech multiple times. "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 one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." He continues to state his "dreams," referring to many things. In this case, his repetition goes to show all that America had to fix, sharing with his audience the large scale of inequality. In contrast, former President Bush also exhibited exemplary language that not only spread his creed but convinced some of

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