Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King's Speech

It was the end of summer. For almost half of a year, thousands of people had been fighting for their rights, battling against all of the nay sayers to do the impossible and not be treated as inferior. On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. joined all of these people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to come together in a peaceful manner demanding justice, freedom, and equality. To demand these three qualities of life, King told of a dream, a wonderful dream, in his speech, “I Have a Dream.” In this speech, he told that now was the time, the time to change America’s view on equality and justice. By using rhetorical terms, King was able to bring this feeling of change to the audience, which allowed for a racial revolution to take place.

He states that “They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.” This is his logic, in which society can’t stand together strong and united if one person is not free. In this quote, he is trying to get people to understand that united we stand, divided we fall, and if we stay divided and do not fix our mistakes, society will crumble into a pile of rubble that no one will choose to salvage. King also states that his dream “is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” This conveys his idea of unity, by stating that it was not just the blacks dream to be free and have justice, but a whole nation. By stating that the whole nation has this same dream, he is not singling out just one race. He is including everyone, which shows that everyone is in it

One of his main allusions, is alluding to the Declaration of Independence. In his speech, he states that, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men a created equal.” In this quote, he is alluding to the statement the founding fathers made when they said that everyone would be treated as one, and no one would be treated as less. By referencing the declaration, he gains credibility, because everyone in the United States looks up to the founding fathers as heroes. By referencing them, he brings across a feeling of, “The founding fathers did, so could I.” Also, King alludes to Abraham Lincoln throughout his speech. He states that they are standing in the shadow of a great American, who first gave hope to the African Americans at the end of the civil war. He also states that by standing on the Lincoln Memorial, they are standing “on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice.” He says this, because Lincoln brought freedom to the slaves and gave them a chance, and now they can do it again in his shadow. They can bring that same feeling of hope that the slaves felt when the Emancipation Proclamation was