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Comparing The Bigger Picture, By Martin Luther King Jr.

798 Words4 Pages

Following the Emancipation Proclamation in which all slaves were legally set free came the multitude of underlying ways to continue discrimination and oppression of minority groups like the Jim Crow laws. This discrimination and oppression many groups faced went on for years without seeing the slightest change, that was until the Civil Rights Movement of 1965 in which the first major stance to bring equality had caught fire. Even today, we see protests that aim to bring about the equality everyone deserves, like the BLM. Both “The Bigger Picture” by Dominique Jones and “I have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr make use of the widely known oppression minority groups face; while both texts push their audience to understand the cruel and unfair …show more content…

King’s use of applicable scenarios is powerful, for instance “But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.” (King 5) and “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight;” (King 24). Both of these display a thoughtful process in which the cruelties of oppression are put into simple terms that anyone can understand, it makes the hard to grasp easier and allows the people to truly understand how wrong oppression is King’s technique doesn’t end there as his use of methodical language is possibly even more effective claiming “the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.” (King 3) as well as “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. "” (King 17) Such formal language brings a merit to his words in doing so, gaining large amounts of support and even takes the foundation of the country and makes it a tool for persuasion for

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