The Rhetorical Strategies Of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech
Perhaps one of the most morally irreproachable and commendable speeches ever given was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech given on August 29th, 1963. The speech was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. in front of 250,000 activists who participated in the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom during the height of the Civil Rights movement.
The purpose of Dr King’s speech was to create hope that one day, through peaceful protest, segregation would end. King’s message encouraged all activists to remain on the higher road of peaceful demonstrations and to not drink “from the cup of bitterness and hatred” which is violence. Martin Luther King Jr.’s intended audience was not just the crowd present for his speech, but for the whole country to hear and take in. The purpose of this text is to analyze the rhetorical strategies King used in his speech that made his message so compelling.
Martin Luther King Jr. begins his speech with a tone that conveys a great and timeless feeling, stating, “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of the Nation.” His monumental tone immediately creates a mood that is significant and serious which causes the audience to feel a part of something grand and to be present. This also causes people who are listening outside of the event at later times, all the way up until today, to feel that King was trying to express a very serious, very important, and timeless idea.
Dr. King goes on to grandly state, “5 score years ago,” which is the same wording that Abraham Lincoln used in his Gettysburg Address. King used this to represent himself in the same light and manner that Abraham Lincoln did, hoping to reignite the “light and hope” Abraham Lincoln caused in the nation. Most Americans, black and white, have a high respect for Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. fearlessly paints himself in the same manner as President Lincoln did. When King resembles himself in this way, it subtly causes Americans to look up to and respect him in the same way they do to Abraham Lincoln.
Another rhetorical strategy Dr. King used was contrast. While talking about the emancipation proclamation he states, “This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light and hope to millions of Negro slaves… It came as the joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.“ King describes slavery as “the long night of captivity” to contrast the “beacon of light” he used to describe the emancipation proclamation. This contrast lures his audience to believe in the injustices of slavery in the past and leads them to his next argument.
King goes on to say, “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free… the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chain of discrimination… the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty… the Negro is still languishing in the corner of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.” Dr. King uses the words “sadly crippled”, “chains”, and “languishing in the corner” to depict a miserable scene for black Americans, one of torture, impairment, and imprisonment. These phrases, in Martin Luther King Jr.’s own words, “dramatize” the situation in the country for black Americans and compel us through descriptive and relentless imagery, causing sadness and remorse in the audience. King also uses the terms “living on a lonely island” and an “exile in his own land” to depict more confinement and misery for African Americans, again emphasizing and magnifying their current situation through imagery. Dr. King later declares, “The whirlwind of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our Nation until the bright day of Justice emerges.” King uses the words “whirlwind,” “shake,” and “revolt” to depict chaos and power, giving his audience a feeling of impending change and personal power.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s most apparent and well known rhetorical strategy was repetition. In the beginning of his speech King states, “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled… One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island… One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing….” King repeats “One hundred years later” four times to press on the idea that injustice has been going on for far too long and forces his audience to hear his main point by repeating this idea. Each repetition adds upon the last, pressing the idea into the minds of his audience further and further, in similitude of the repeated injustices of segregation. King wants his audience to feel and empathize for those suffering so that all people will know of their prolonged struggle.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous and well known repetition was when he trumpeted, “I have a dream” 9 times in succession, each proclamation with a different topic following it but the same idea behind it. When he repeats this phrase it resounds like a heart beating. It is as if Dr. King is awakening the hope in his audience and throughout the country. It gives his audience a promise and ignites their faith when they hear that King has a dream. Each repetition stirs the hearts of those who hear him into peaceful endeavor for true freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. excites the long kindled fire within us into a roaring flame of hope and action.
Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech created hope that one day, through peaceful protest, segregation would end, and all people would be free. He gave America faith that we would not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. Through King’s rhetorical strategies of tone, similitude, contrast, imagery, and repetition, his message of hope became incredibly compelling, even until today.
