Professor Butler Shaffer's 'I Have A Dream'

Professor Butler Shaffer describes the major difference between freedom and liberty in his statement “Liberty, he says, is what state (meaning the government) decides to grant you in terms of personal freedom. Freedom, he says, is your individual ability to do what you want with your time, believe what you want, think what you want. Freedom is in your core being and cannot be taken away, even by the most totalitarian governments, although they may try. Liberty is a governmental structure that hopefully allows you freedom of life, liberty and property.” (Millennial Star, July 22, 2011). With the analysis of Professor Shaffer’s quote one could see that in Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, “I Have a Dream”, he is describing liberty not freedom. In his speech Dr. King Jr is describing liberty because nobody can take away the “individual ability” that Professor Shaffer describes, and because the African American community still had all the governmental rights. In Professor Shaffer’s quote, he describes the individual freedoms as the “… ability to do what you want with your time, believe what you want, think what you want.” (Millennial Star). While, there were many things that were restricted or off limits to the blacks during this period these are

King is describing liberty and not freedom is because since February 3, 1870 by the 15th amendment of the U.S. constitution African- Americans have been allowed to vote. Also, since the abolishment of slavery they have also been had the right to “life, liberty and property” (U.S. Constitution), which is the same exact rights that every person in this country has. This being the African- American community was a severe disadvantage because they could not read, write and did not have the funds to have land for themselves. One could see that Dr. King just wanted everyone to have the same level of opportunity and for every race to have the same liberties since they all had the same