Purpose Of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech

On August 28, 1963, at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech entitled "I Have a Dream". The purpose of Martin Luther King 's speech was to make Americans of all racial backgrounds aware of the racial, civil, and economic inequality that was taking place in the United States. Martin Luther King 's speech was intended to bring awareness of the problem of inequality and to give Americans hope and faith that one day everyone, black and white, would be equal. King states in his speech that when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it gave hope to millions that had experienced injustice and inequality, and his expectation was to bring hope to Americans by delivering this speech just as Lincoln

Martin Luther King 's uses various literary devices such as metaphors, personification, similes, and imagery in his speech so that his audience would be able to better understand and visual what he is saying. An example of a metaphor in King 's speech is when he compares the deprivation of African American rights with "a bad check that has come back from the bank of injustice marked with insufficient funds". He states that we must cash a check that will give us the riches of freedom and security of justice. This metaphor is referring to the freedom and rights that African American 's deserve and are promised but are not given. An example of personification in his speech is "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. Here in this quote, he personifies the abstract qualities of freedom, bitterness, and hatred and uses them to represent something we "drink" of "thirst for". King uses this metaphor to teach us that we should not be bitter and have hatred if we want to ultimately achieve freedom. An example of the use of a simile is in the line "justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream". In this simile, he compares the idea of us all having justice to water in a stream. Lastly, King uses imagery in his speech. He words his sentences with visual details and with providing these detailed sentences, he creates visual symbolism to appeal to us. He creates a visual representation and mental images

Martin Luther King 's speech is still relevant today because all races are not yet equal. Although racism and segregation have somewhat "improved" from 1963 until now we can still see clear signs today that racism and inequality still exists. The idea of change and equality that Martin Luther King and other activists fought for was just the beginning of a revolution that has not yet ended. King expresses in his speech, that in order for us to achieve true freedom we need to be able to work together, pray together, and stand up for freedom together knowing that one day we will all be free. King states that we should not be comfortable with the idea of gradualism, where we gradually achieve a change, but we should make a change now. Being on this sinful earth, nothing is ever going to be perfect, but we should still fight for what we think is right. Even if we don 't achieve our goal of equality down here on earth, we should all have faith that one day when Jesus returns, we will all be equal and live in perfect harmony in His