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Rhetorical Analysis Of Mlk Speech

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. At the age of 25, King earned a sociology degree and completed his Ph.D (A&E Networks Television). King’s charismatic and strong attitude helped him become a successful minister and the most famous civil-rights activists. On the day of August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his inspirational speech, I Have a Dream. Approximately 200,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to watch King personally. An additional million listened on the radio and watched on television (Phibbs). In his speech, King spoke about the injustices of segregation and discrimination taking place in the nation toward African Americans. Speaking out for freedom, …show more content…

His masterful delivery of these metaphors and the frequent repetition makes the speech much like a poem or a part of a song. This special lyrical and parallel structure helped get his main points across and allows a large audience to understand simple but powerful words (Layfield) . The rhythm and frequent repetition are used to drive home his key points, stressing the importances of his goal. As example, King uses “I have a dream that one day...” and “Let freedom ring..” to open his points on how Americans should change against racial indifferences. Furthermore the King’s parallel structure clarifies and highlights his intent by building up to a more important point.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s skillful and motivational I Have a Dream speech was a major turning point in America's history. King took a firm stand for equal rights as he confronted the issues of racism. King’s ambition was emphasizing his belief that someday all men could be brothers. The intensifying rise of the civil rights movement helped King’s speech produce a strong outcome on public opinion. The careful use of appeals in King’s most popular speech made it effective, recognizable, and life changing for the people that got to hear it that day and the generations to

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Martin Luther King Jr. has written many inspirational pieces during his lifetime while fighting for African American civil rights. Two of his most inspirational writings are his I Have A Dream speech and the Letter From Birmingham Jail. The only question that remains is “which one takes the cake,” meaning, which one conveys the deepest, most meaningful message about the fight for equal rights? It is clear, however, that the Letter From Birmingham Jail shows itself to be the true winner because of its powerful message and great detail involving the issues of segregation and the unequal rights that African Americans faced everyday, which stirred and appealed to the emotions of his audience.

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King begins his speech speaking about justice and freedom; “We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom” (1). He includes the nation in his speech to agree with his argument they everyone should have the same equal rights. By including the nation King can firmly state his idea and people are more likely to agree with it. He also discusses how nonviolence is a crucial piece of peaceful protesting; “Over the last few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek” (3). King uses this viewpoint to get the nation to be against violent forms of protesting because it does not send the correct message.

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King’s words are able to open people's eyes to a new way of life. King took advantage of the rhetorical devices, ethos, logos, and pathos in order to articulate his message in such a way that would always leave the reader feeling something instead of just thinking.

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Dr. king talk about a lot of hardships during this speech. The way that Dr. king showed the African Americans is by discrimination, racism and not getting any rights. For example Dr. king talks about a "Promissory note" which were suppose to give every person human rights but made them suffer more. Another example is "One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination" quoted by Dr. king. This shows that even after the "Promissory note" which is the declaration of independence they were stuck in this same place and being treated different because of their color.

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On August 28, 1963, civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Junior, stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and addressed over 250,000 people during a prominent time in history. King rallied for peace and racial harmony through his eloquently written speech most famously known as, “I Have A Dream”. Martin Luther King Junior addressed the growing issue of civil rights amongst African Americans through his “I Have A Dream” speech, otherwise known as a masterpiece of rhetoric. King speaks to the public about racial equality and freedom with the use of ethos, logos and mainly pathos. Martin Luther King Jr. uses Ethos to prove his credibility throughout his speech.

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The three strongest elements that he used were diction, allusion, and syntax. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s, I have a dream”, he exploits the element diction, to emphasize his point. For example, “With this faith we will be able to work together, play together, to struggle together…” (King 51). In this quote, King repeats the word “together” to accentuate that we should be united as a whole nation.

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1272 Words | 6 Pages

With this repetitive device, King attempts to convince those that may stand opposed to him. For instance, King repeatedly begins a string of statements with the fragment, “One hundred years later” followed by a description of the current life of an African American (King 3). By emphasising the time that had passed, King asks his audience to consider the little progress that had occurred in that time. He recognizes the surplus of racial discrimination present in the current time and invites the audience to unveil the horrible truth. Not only do these horrendous injustices exist, but they have for over one hundred years.

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A key part of King’s vision “I have a dream”: Who doesn’t have Martin Luther King speech resonating in his head when he hears these worlds. Those words heard during the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom “on August 28th, 1963. The brio of “The King”, King capacity to deliver an explicit, powerful, persuasive speech to the crowd. Through his use of context, appeals and symbols, he encourages his nation to embrace the word of “the Declaration of Independence”.

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John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered his “Civil Rights Address” on June 11, 1963 to talk about how everyone is born equal and just because you are born with darker skin you shouldn’t be considered less of a person and have less rights. It was filmed in the oval office and broadcast on national radio and television. This speech is about equal rights for african americans. It was made because two black children had to be escorted to school by state troopers after numerous threats. John F. Kennedy used diction as well as logos and ethos to make listeners believe that his argument is right and they should take his side.

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King’s dialect showed the audience civil right issues, involving many rhetorical strategies using ethos, logos, and pathos, to a racially tempered crowd whom he viewed as different, but not equal. From the very beginning of it , King brings his crowd back to the origin of America when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, that freed all slaves and gave hope to the former slaves. But immediately after Dr. King speaks out on how after 100 years Blacks still do not have the free will that is deserved. He points out the irony of America because Black Americans were still not truly free.

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The main idea of his speech is that all people were created equal and, although this is no longer the case nowadays, King felt it must be the case for the future. He argued peacefully, yet passionately and powerfully. In preparation for the speech, he studied the Bible, The Gettysburg Address and the US Declaration of Independence and he alludes to all three in his address. The intensity of King’s speech is built through parallelism, metaphors, bold statements and rhythmic repetitions:

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Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech is very influential. It was deliberately written so that he could try to convince the people of America to end segregation. He believed that nothing has been done to stop segregation and he feels the time is now to end it. He used literary devices to explain why segregation needs to be ended now.

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That was a piece taken out of his speech back from August 28, 1963, arguable one of the most powerful speeches because of how it impacted the hearts of the people and what happened after that speech set off a world wide movement. African Americans seen how hard King was fighting for racial rights and against segregation, what happened after that speech changed the world forever. King knew that there was going to be various different radio stations there when he gives his speech and he made different speeches but when it happened he mostly spoke from heart to the people. Martin Luther King Jr’s protests were more powerful when they were non-violent because his voice was more powerful than all of the physical violence. He voiced his opinion and

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1111 Words | 5 Pages

To achieve this, he used rhetorical strategies such as appeal to pathos and repetition. His passionate tone flowed through these strategies, increasing their persuasive power on the people and encouraging them to follow/listen to his message on racial injustice. While pathos elicits an emotional response from the audience to make them more accepting of King’s ideas, repetition structures the speech and emphasizes key ideas for the audience to take away from listening. These two techniques played a crucial role in furthering his purpose and in provoking a powerful response from the audience that made this speech memorable and awe-inspiring. To this day, King’s speech remains one of the most famous and influential speeches in

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Considered to be one of the most famous and powerful speeches ever spoken, “I Have a Dream” has had a very strong impact on the world we live in today. Martin Luther King Jr. lived in a time when segregation was still going on and racism was still prominent in the United States. King would learn about racism at a young age. When he was young he became friends with a white kid, and when they were six the white boy’s father prohibited his son from being friends with King due to his racial beliefs. His life was tough; he developed depression during his teenage years.

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