mlk persuasive essay

A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I Have a Dream’ is one of the greatest speeches in American history. Delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) in Washington D.C. in 1963, the speech is a powerful rallying cry for racial equality and for a fairer and equal world in which African Americans will be as free as white Americans.

If you’ve ever stayed up till the small hours working on a presentation you’re due to give the next day, tearing your hair out as you try to find the right words, you can take solace in the fact that as great an orator as Martin Luther King did the same with one of the most memorable speeches ever delivered.

He reportedly stayed up until 4am the night before he was due to give his ‘I Have a Dream’, writing it out in longhand. You can read the speech in full here .

‘I Have a Dream’: background

The occasion for King’s speech was the march on Washington , which saw some 210,000 African American men, women, and children gather at the Washington Monument in August 1963, before marching to the Lincoln Memorial.

They were marching for several reasons, including jobs (many of them were out of work), but the main reason was freedom: King and many other Civil Rights leaders sought to remove segregation of black and white Americans and to ensure black Americans were treated the same as white Americans.

1963 was the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation , in which then US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) had freed the African slaves in the United States in 1863. But a century on from the abolition of slavery, King points out, black Americans still are not free in many respects.

‘I Have a Dream’: summary

King begins his speech by reminding his audience that it’s a century, or ‘five score years’, since that ‘great American’ Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This ensured the freedom of the African slaves, but Black Americans are still not free, King points out, because of racial segregation and discrimination.

America is a wealthy country, and yet many Black Americans live in poverty. It is as if the Black American is an exile in his own land. King likens the gathering in Washington to cashing a cheque: in other words, claiming money that is due to be paid.

Next, King praises the ‘magnificent words’ of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence . King compares these documents to a promissory note, because they contain the promise that all men, including Black men, will be guaranteed what the Declaration of Independence calls ‘inalienable rights’: namely, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

King asserts that America in the 1960s has ‘defaulted’ on this promissory note: in other words, it has refused to pay up. King calls it a ‘sacred obligation’, but America as a nation is like someone who has written someone else a cheque that has bounced and the money owed remains to be paid. But it is not because the money isn’t there: America, being a land of opportunity, has enough ‘funds’ to ensure everyone is prosperous enough.

King urges America to rise out of the ‘valley’ of segregation to the ‘sunlit path of racial justice’. He uses the word ‘brotherhood’ to refer to all Americans, since all men and women are God’s children. He also repeatedly emphasises the urgency of the moment. This is not some brief moment of anger but a necessary new start for America. However, King cautions his audience not to give way to bitterness and hatred, but to fight for justice in the right manner, with dignity and discipline.

Physical violence and militancy are to be avoided. King recognises that many white Americans who are also poor and marginalised feel a kinship with the Civil Rights movement, so all Americans should join together in the cause. Police brutality against Black Americans must be eradicated, as must racial discrimination in hotels and restaurants. States which forbid Black Americans from voting must change their laws.

Martin Luther King then comes to the most famous part of his speech, in which he uses the phrase ‘I have a dream’ to begin successive sentences (a rhetorical device known as anaphora ). King outlines the form that his dream, or ambition or wish for a better America, takes.

His dream, he tells his audience, is ‘deeply rooted’ in the American Dream: that notion that anybody, regardless of their background, can become prosperous and successful in the United States. King once again reminds his listeners of the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

In his dream of a better future, King sees the descendants of former Black slaves and the descendants of former slave owners united, sitting and eating together. He has a dream that one day his children will live in a country where they are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

Even in Mississippi and Alabama, states which are riven by racial injustice and hatred, people of all races will live together in harmony. King then broadens his dream out into ‘our hope’: a collective aspiration and endeavour. King then quotes the patriotic American song ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee ’, which describes America as a ‘sweet land of liberty’.

King uses anaphora again, repeating the phrase ‘let freedom ring’ several times in succession to suggest how jubilant America will be on the day that such freedoms are ensured. And when this happens, Americans will be able to join together and be closer to the day when they can sing a traditional African-American hymn : ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.’

‘I Have a Dream’: analysis

Although Martin Luther King’s speech has become known by the repeated four-word phrase ‘I Have a Dream’, which emphasises the personal nature of his vision, his speech is actually about a collective dream for a better and more equal America which is not only shared by many Black Americans but by anyone who identifies with their fight against racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination.

Nevertheless, in working from ‘I have a dream’ to a different four-word phrase, ‘this is our hope’. The shift is natural and yet it is a rhetorical masterstroke, since the vision of a better nation which King has set out as a very personal, sincere dream is thus telescoped into a universal and collective struggle for freedom.

What’s more, in moving from ‘dream’ to a different noun, ‘hope’, King suggests that what might be dismissed as an idealistic ambition is actually something that is both possible and achievable. No sooner has the dream gathered momentum than it becomes a more concrete ‘hope’.

In his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, King was doing more than alluding to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation one hundred years earlier. The opening words to his speech, ‘Five score years ago’, allude to a specific speech Lincoln himself had made a century before: the Gettysburg Address .

In that speech, delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery (now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November 1863, Lincoln had urged his listeners to continue in the fight for freedom, envisioning the day when all Americans – including Black slaves – would be free. His speech famously begins with the words: ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’

‘Four score and seven years’ is eighty-seven years, which takes us back from 1863 to 1776, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, Martin Luther King’s allusion to the words of Lincoln’s historic speech do two things: they call back to Lincoln’s speech but also, by extension, to the founding of the United States almost two centuries before. Although Lincoln and the American Civil War represented progress in the cause to make all Americans free regardless of their ethnicity, King makes it clear in ‘I Have a Dream’ that there is still some way to go.

In the last analysis, King’s speech is a rhetorically clever and emotionally powerful call to use non-violent protest to oppose racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination, but also to ensure that all Americans are lifted out of poverty and degradation.

But most of all, King emphasises the collective endeavour that is necessary to bring about the world he wants his children to live in: the togetherness, the linking of hands, which is essential to make the dream a reality.

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"I Have a Dream"

August 28, 1963

Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the 28 August 1963  March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom , synthesized portions of his previous sermons and speeches, with selected statements by other prominent public figures.

King had been drawing on material he used in the “I Have a Dream” speech in his other speeches and sermons for many years. The finale of King’s April 1957 address, “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations,” envisioned a “new world,” quoted the song “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and proclaimed that he had heard “a powerful orator say not so long ago, that … Freedom must ring from every mountain side…. Yes, let it ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado…. Let it ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let it ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let it ring from every mountain and hill of Alabama. From every mountain side, let freedom ring” ( Papers  4:178–179 ).

In King’s 1959 sermon “Unfulfilled Hopes,” he describes the life of the apostle Paul as one of “unfulfilled hopes and shattered dreams” ( Papers  6:360 ). He notes that suffering as intense as Paul’s “might make you stronger and bring you closer to the Almighty God,” alluding to a concept he later summarized in “I Have a Dream”: “unearned suffering is redemptive” ( Papers  6:366 ; King, “I Have a Dream,” 84).

In September 1960, King began giving speeches referring directly to the American Dream. In a speech given that month at a conference of the North Carolina branches of the  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , King referred to the unexecuted clauses of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and spoke of America as “a dream yet unfulfilled” ( Papers  5:508 ). He advised the crowd that “we must be sure that our struggle is conducted on the highest level of dignity and discipline” and reminded them not to “drink the poisonous wine of hate,” but to use the “way of nonviolence” when taking “direct action” against oppression ( Papers  5:510 ).

King continued to give versions of this speech throughout 1961 and 1962, then calling it “The American Dream.” Two months before the March on Washington, King stood before a throng of 150,000 people at Cobo Hall in Detroit to expound upon making “the American Dream a reality” (King, Address at Freedom Rally, 70). King repeatedly exclaimed, “I have a dream this afternoon” (King, Address at Freedom Rally, 71). He articulated the words of the prophets Amos and Isaiah, declaring that “justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream,” for “every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low” (King, Address at Freedom Rally, 72). As he had done numerous times in the previous two years, King concluded his message imagining the day “when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing with the Negroes in the spiritual of old: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” (King,  Address at Freedom Rally , 73).

As King and his advisors prepared his speech for the conclusion of the 1963 march, he solicited suggestions for the text. Clarence  Jones   offered a metaphor for the unfulfilled promise of constitutional rights for African Americans, which King incorporated into the final text: “America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned” (King, “I Have a Dream,” 82). Several other drafts and suggestions were posed. References to Abraham Lincoln and the  Emancipation Proclamation  were sustained throughout the countless revisions. King recalled that he did not finish the complete text of the speech until 3:30 A.M. on the morning of 28 August.

Later that day, King stood at the podium overlooking the gathering. Although a typescript version of the speech was made available to the press on the morning of the march, King did not merely read his prepared remarks. He later recalled: “I started out reading the speech, and I read it down to a point … the audience response was wonderful that day…. And all of a sudden this thing came to me that … I’d used many times before.... ‘I have a dream.’ And I just felt that I wanted to use it here … I used it, and at that point I just turned aside from the manuscript altogether. I didn’t come back to it” (King, 29 November 1963).

The following day in the  New York Times,  James Reston wrote: “Dr. King touched all the themes of the day, only better than anybody else. He was full of the symbolism of Lincoln and Gandhi, and the cadences of the Bible. He was both militant and sad, and he sent the crowd away feeling that the long journey had been worthwhile” (Reston, “‘I Have a Dream …’”).

Carey to King, 7 June 1955, in  Papers  2:560–561.

Hansen,  The Dream,  2003.

King, Address at the Freedom Rally in Cobo Hall, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, “I Have a Dream,” Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, Interview by Donald H. Smith, 29 November 1963,  DHSTR-WHi .

King, “The Negro and the American Dream,” Excerpt from Address at the Annual Freedom Mass Meeting of the North Carolina State Conference of Branches of the NAACP, 25 September 1960, in  Papers  5:508–511.

King, “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations,” Address Delivered at St. Louis Freedom Rally, 10 April 1957, in  Papers  4:167–179.

King, Unfulfilled Hopes, 5 April 1959, in  Papers  6:359–367.

James Reston, “‘I Have a Dream…’: Peroration by Dr. King Sums Up a Day the Capital Will Remember,”  New York Times , 29 August 1963.

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The Lasting Power of Dr. King’s Dream Speech

By Michiko Kakutani

• Aug. 27, 2013

It was late in the day and hot, and after a long march and an afternoon of speeches about federal legislation, unemployment and racial and social justice, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. finally stepped to the lectern, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, to address the crowd of 250,000 gathered on the National Mall.

He began slowly, with magisterial gravity, talking about what it was to be black in America in 1963 and the “shameful condition” of race relations a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Unlike many of the day’s previous speakers, he did not talk about particular bills before Congress or the marchers’ demands. Instead, he situated the civil rights movement within the broader landscape of history — time past, present and future — and within the timeless vistas of Scripture.

Dr. King was about halfway through his prepared speech when Mahalia Jackson — who earlier that day had delivered a stirring rendition of the spiritual “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned” — shouted out to him from the speakers’ stand: “Tell ’em about the ‘Dream,’ Martin, tell ’em about the ‘Dream’!” She was referring to a riff he had delivered on earlier occasions, and Dr. King pushed the text of his remarks to the side and began an extraordinary improvisation on the dream theme that would become one of the most recognizable refrains in the world.

With his improvised riff, Dr. King took a leap into history, jumping from prose to poetry, from the podium to the pulpit. His voice arced into an emotional crescendo as he turned from a sobering assessment of current social injustices to a radiant vision of hope — of what America could be. “I have a dream,” he declared, “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”

Many in the crowd that afternoon, 50 years ago on Wednesday, had taken buses and trains from around the country. Many wore hats and their Sunday best — “People then,” the civil rights leader John Lewis would recall, “when they went out for a protest, they dressed up” — and the Red Cross was passing out ice cubes to help alleviate the sweltering August heat. But if people were tired after a long day, they were absolutely electrified by Dr. King. There was reverent silence when he began speaking, and when he started to talk about his dream, they called out, “Amen,” and, “Preach, Dr. King, preach,” offering, in the words of his adviser Clarence B. Jones, “every version of the encouragements you would hear in a Baptist church multiplied by tens of thousands.”

You could feel “the passion of the people flowing up to him,” James Baldwin, a skeptic of that day’s March on Washington, later wrote, and in that moment, “it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real.”

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Text to Text | ‘I Have a Dream’ and ‘The Lasting Power of Dr. King’s Dream Speech’

American History

Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.

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Last summer was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. painted his dream of racial equality and justice for the nation that still resonates with us. “I have a dream,” he proclaimed, “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” In this Text to Text , we pair Dr. King’s pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech with a reflection by the Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani, who explores why this singular speech has such lasting power.

Background: The speech that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was not the speech he had prepared in his notes and stayed up nearly all night writing.

Dr. King was the closing speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the “Dream” speech that inspired a nation and helped galvanize the civil rights movement almost never happened. The march itself almost never happened, as David Brooks writes , because the Urban League, the N.A.A.C.P. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference either chose to opt out or were focusing their energy elsewhere before the events in Birmingham, Ala., in May 1963, with fire hoses and snapping dogs turned on protesters, helped reignite the call for a national march. The speech almost never happened because Dr. King didn’t think he had time to say all he wanted to say in the five minutes he was allotted — at the end of a long, hot summer day before the crowds were ready to disperse and go home.

But Dr. King was “the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers,” Michiko Kakutani writes, and he “was comfortable with the black church’s oral tradition, and he knew how to read his audience and react to it.” In the middle of his speech, the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson urged him from behind the podium, “Tell ’em about the ‘Dream,’ Martin, tell ’em about the ‘Dream’!” She was referring to a riff he had delivered many times before, and in that moment, Dr. King broke from his prepared remarks and shared his transcendent vision for the nation’s future.

Below, we excerpted only the first part of Dr. King’s speech, but students should read the entire speech or this abridged version (PDF). For greater effect, they can listen to the audio or watch the video of Dr. King’s delivery while they read along.

Ms. Kakutani, a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic for The Times, reflects on the speech’s lasting power on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. We offer an excerpt that introduces her analysis, but we recommend that students read the entire article to explore her evidence for what makes the speech so remarkable.

Key Questions: Why is Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech so powerful, even 50 years later?

Activity Sheets: As students read and discuss, they might take notes using one or more of the three graphic organizers (PDFs) we have created for our Text to Text feature:

• Comparing Two or More Texts
• Double-Entry Chart for Close Reading
• Document Analysis Questions

Excerpt 1: From “The Lasting Power of Dr. King’s Dream Speech,” by Michiko Kakutani

It was late in the day and hot, and after a long march and an afternoon of speeches about federal legislation, unemployment and racial and social justice, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. finally stepped to the lectern, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, to address the crowd of 250,000 gathered on the National Mall. He began slowly, with magisterial gravity, talking about what it was to be black in America in 1963 and the “shameful condition” of race relations a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Unlike many of the day’s previous speakers, he did not talk about particular bills before Congress or the marchers’ demands. Instead, he situated the civil rights movement within the broader landscape of history — time past, present and future — and within the timeless vistas of Scripture. Dr. King was about halfway through his prepared speech when Mahalia Jackson — who earlier that day had delivered a stirring rendition of the spiritual “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned” — shouted out to him from the speakers’ stand: “Tell ’em about the ‘Dream,’ Martin, tell ’em about the ‘Dream’!” She was referring to a riff he had delivered on earlier occasions, and Dr. King pushed the text of his remarks to the side and began an extraordinary improvisation on the dream theme that would become one of the most recognizable refrains in the world. With his improvised riff, Dr. King took a leap into history, jumping from prose to poetry, from the podium to the pulpit. His voice arced into an emotional crescendo as he turned from a sobering assessment of current social injustices to a radiant vision of hope — of what America could be. “I have a dream,” he declared, “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!” Many in the crowd that afternoon, 50 years ago on Wednesday, had taken buses and trains from around the country. Many wore hats and their Sunday best — “People then,” the civil rights leader John Lewis would recall, “when they went out for a protest, they dressed up” — and the Red Cross was passing out ice cubes to help alleviate the sweltering August heat. But if people were tired after a long day, they were absolutely electrified by Dr. King. There was reverent silence when he began speaking, and when he started to talk about his dream, they called out, “Amen,” and, “Preach, Dr. King, preach,” offering, in the words of his adviser Clarence B. Jones, “every version of the encouragements you would hear in a Baptist church multiplied by tens of thousands.” You could feel “the passion of the people flowing up to him,” James Baldwin, a skeptic of that day’s March on Washington, later wrote, and in that moment, “it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real.” Dr. King’s speech was not only the heart and emotional cornerstone of the March on Washington, but also a testament to the transformative powers of one man and the magic of his words. Fifty years later, it is a speech that can still move people to tears. Fifty years later, its most famous lines are recited by schoolchildren and sampled by musicians. Fifty years later, the four words “I have a dream” have become shorthand for Dr. King’s commitment to freedom, social justice and nonviolence, inspiring activists from Tiananmen Square to Soweto, Eastern Europe to the West Bank. Why does Dr. King’s “Dream” speech exert such a potent hold on people around the world and across the generations? Part of its resonance resides in Dr. King’s moral imagination. Part of it resides in his masterly oratory and gift for connecting with his audience — be they on the Mall that day in the sun or watching the speech on television or, decades later, viewing it online. And part of it resides in his ability, developed over a lifetime, to convey the urgency of his arguments through language richly layered with biblical and historical meanings….

Excerpt 2: From “I Have a Dream,” by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children….

For Writing or Discussion

• Michiko Kakutani asks: “Why does Dr. King’s ‘Dream’ speech exert such a potent hold on people around the world and across the generations?” What answer does she provide? What is the most powerful evidence she uses to back up her analysis?
• Ms. Kakutani explains that “with his improvised riff, Dr. King took a leap into history, jumping from prose to poetry, from the podium to the pulpit.” What does she mean by that description?
• After reading, listening or watching Dr. King’s “Dream” speech, describe your reaction. What do you find powerful or moving in the speech? Do you have a favorite line or phrase? Explain.
• How does Dr. King use figurative language and other poetic and oratorical devices, such as repetition and theme, to make his speech more powerful?
• What historical and biblical allusions do you recognize within the speech? Which allusions do you find most compelling, and why?
• Have we achieved Dr. King’s dream 50 years later? What progress do you think this country has made since the March on Washington with regard to civil rights? What progress do we still need to make? Cite evidence to support your opinion.

Going Further

1. Witnesses to History: How did people at the time react — to Dr. King’s “Dream” speech as well as to the march as a whole? The Times gathered reflections from readers who attended the march . Choose one or two memories to read in the Interactive. What was most powerful about the march for them? What was their recollection of Dr. King’s speech?

Alternatively, read James Reston’s 1963 news analysis published the day after the march in The Times to understand one contemporary critic’s perspective. Mr. Reston writes:

It was Dr. King who, near the end of the day, touched the vast audience…. But Dr. King brought them alive in the late afternoon with a peroration that was an anguished echo from all the old American reformers. Roger Williams calling for religious liberty. Sam Adams calling for political liberty, old man Thoreau denouncing coercion, William Lloyd Garrison demanding emancipation, and Eugene V. Debs crying for economic equality — Dr. King echoed them all. “I have a dream,” he cried again and again. And each time the dream was a promise out of our ancient articles of faith: phrases from the Constitution. lines from the great anthem of the nation, guarantees from the Bill of Rights, all ending with a vision that they all one day might come true.

How does Mr. Reston view the “Dream” speech? What additional insights does this news analysis give you about how The Times, or the mainstream news media in general, might have viewed the event at the time?

2. Other Civil Rights Speeches: Dr. King’s “Dream” speech is the best known of a long line of civil rights speeches. The Times collected other speeches that have influenced perceptions of race in America, including Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” and Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Choose one speech and compare it to “I Have a Dream” in both tone and message.

3. Nonviolent Resistance: Dr. King’s speech was grounded in a larger movement committed to nonviolent resistance. Read the Times columnist David Brooks’s “The Ideas Behind the March,” and then consider the following questions:

• Mr. Brooks writes: “Nonviolent coercion was an ironic form of aggression. Nonviolence furnished the movement with a series of tactics that allowed it to remain on permanent offense.” What does he mean by that? How does this analysis help explain why nonviolence is often so effective?
• What current issue do you think would be well served by a nonviolent reform movement like the civil rights movement? Why is this issue important to you, and what actions would you want such a movement to take to make change?

4. Assessing the Dream: Daniel R. Smith attended both the March on Washington in 1963 and the 50th anniversary commemoration last August. Five decades after Dr. King’s historic speech, Mr. Smith reflected on how much progress the nation has made in terms of civil rights, but he also wondered if “the pace has slowed considerably.” Read “50 Years After March, Views of Fitful Progress” and study the related graphic analyzing change over time in key areas like education and jobs. How much progress do you think the country has made in civil rights since 1963? How much progress do we still need to make? Cite evidence to support your opinion.

More Resources:

Celebrating M.L.K. Day — news articles, Opinion articles, multimedia and lesson plans related to Dr. King and the civil rights movement

Additional Lesson Plans — by the Gilder Lehrman Institute and PBS for middle school and high school students

This resource may be used to address the academic standards listed below.

Common Core E.L.A. Anchor Standards

1   Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2   Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

4   Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

5   Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Another fantastic lesson plan. I teach AP English Language and Composition. King’s writings are an essential part of the curriculum; these ideas will be great springboards for discussion. Thank you!

James Mulhern, //www.synthesizingeducation.net Atlantic Technical Center Magnet High School Coconut Creek, Florida

Remarkable Rev, Dr Martin Luther King, an exemplary and epitome of peace movement, who has shown extreme rationality in pursuit of justice, equality and freedom without any violence, taught us how to live a life with a high plane of dignity and prosperity, a life of liberty and equality, a life of complete unanimity and harmony in regard with racism. He taught us the real meaning of revolution……. revolution forwarded to bring the bright and sparkling light of hope of peace and tranquillity. His philosophies, ideologies and of course his dream for AMERICANS reflect his heart which is replete with abundance of humanity, compassion, fraternity and brotherhood. Yes, I have a dream and the dream is to live your dream.

Martin Luther King Jr. had the most memorable speak ever in the history of time. Something new that I have learned about Dr. King’s speech is that it was not the one he had prepared for the event. It amazes me that he still managed to say such a magnificent speak and it was not the one he was preparing for it just happened. I think Martin Luther King Jr. speech of “I Have a Dream” is still so powerful till this day is because it was something he was fighting for, for everybody and it was something that was so unique to everybody to hear it was wonderful. The main reason for the speech is for everyone to see that we are equal and for the future to be better than how it was, it just needed to be different. Many people loved the speech that he did but then again there were also others who disliked for the meaning it was about. The people who did not like it probably did not like it because they wanted it to stay the same and were probably taught to hate on others for a reason. Martin to me was a very unique man for doing what he did but there were also others who did the same thing and stood up for what they believed in. Everyone including Martin made others realize what was going on and things needed to be different. So it gave others confidence to do something towards a situation that they may not like and to say something about. The speech was a very peaceful way to say what the problem of the situation was it was not a violent thing to do but it was also dangerous. He did not care that if some were hating on him because of the speech or what he was doing, he must have been proud for what he was doing, I now I would be proud. This speech will always be around and very memorable till this day and till the future.

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I Have a Dream Speech Analysis Research Paper

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Searching for I Have a Dream speech analysis? Look no further! This literary analysis focuses on rhetorical devices and persuasive techniques used by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Introduction

• Summary & the Key Messages
• Analysis of the Structure
• Ethos, Logos, & Pathos

“I Have a Dream” is the most famous speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also considered as the best and greatest speech that was proclaimed in the history of the United States. It gathered more than 200,000 Americans of all races at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

The speech is an excellent example of persuasive rhetoric filled with many expressive means and stylistic devices, such as metaphors, repetitions, allusions, epithets and persuasive constructions. The speech has become a symbol of a new era of freedom and symbol of the American civil rights movement.

I Have a Dream: Summary & the Key Messages

“I Have a Dream” is a representation of the “America Dream” about a free and equal society. As Leff & Kauffeld (1989) mention, “Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech won immediate and sustained praise and has become a moral compass in American political culture” (p. 181).

The speech had a great influence on minds and visions of all Americans and “forever “legitimized” civil rights in the minds of most Amricans” (Leff & Kauffeld 1989, p. 181).

Marin Luther King was among the founders of the American civil rights movement. He led an active political life. He attended the Morehouse College in Atlanta, and then studied theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and Boston University.

In 1955, he became a president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and gained a public recognition for his activities in the campaign. He also is one of the organizers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. In 1963, the members of the conference led mass demonstrations in Alabama. These demonstrations resulted in the passage in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

During one of the march demonstrations for Jobs and Freedom, King pronounced his famous speech. (Durgut 2008). The main purpose of the speech is expressed in its name “I Have a Dream”. The dream of the author was to live in a free society and make all people equal regardless race and social position.

Passionately and powerfully, he claimed that reformation of the society is a task of the future. His words became a meaningful expression of the political and cultural situation in the country and “shaped” the idea for which every American should struggle.

Thus, his speech was aimed at inspiring Americans to take actions and improve their lives. The key message of the speech is “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” (King 1963, n. p.). In order to come to this subject, the author divides the speech into three parts: introduction, first part (American reality) and second part (the prospects of the future).

First of all, he outlines the problem, “One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (King 1963, n. p.), then he provides the detailed description of the racial injustice and inequality that face Americans.

He also inspired the listeners to rebel against these injustices claiming that “Now is the time” for changes, “now is the time to make real the promises of democracy” (King 1963, n. p.). Thus, he prepared people for the second part of his speech in which he presented the results of the changes.

King also expresses the dissatisfactions with the policies and laws which discriminated African Americans and their rights. The intended audience was the government representatives.

However, the author was intended to “touch minds” of all people, both black and white from all social layers. Emotionally and with anticipation, he addresses the people of America and, especially Negro people to whom he belongs:

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred (King 1963, n. p.).

He says “we” in order to show his concern and participation. When emphasizing the word “we” he demonstrates that everybody who understands the problem and seeks changes is involved and the “problem” is not a concern of the particular individuals, but it is a common problem and everybody should make his/her contribution to solve it.

The purpose of the author is to inform and inspire people for struggle and prepare them for changes. He builds his speech so that it was meaningful not only for political activists and Negro people, but to everybody. He says:

…the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny (King 1963, n. p.).

Thus, we can see that the speech is addressed to white people as well. Moreover, King says that “all people are brothers” and there is no racial distinction. Next important trait of the speech is that it was written at the time when the question of racial discrimination was urgent.

Black people faced inequality and violence. “King is known as a charismatic orator. His way of persuading people was to use the power of words instead of physical violence” (Durgut 2008, n. p.).

He knew exactly how to use words, and after he delivered the speech “I Have a Dream”, he gained a great appreciation from people and was called “The Man of the Year” by The Times magazine.

Moreover, a year later, he was awarded by the Nobel Peace Prize for his great contribution to the establishment of justice and peace in the world. These facts demonstrate how people assumed about the author and his activities.

During the time when the speech was proclaimed, television transferred the recent events of the raising struggle for civil rights. There were the episodes of the violence in Birmingham and Alabama. The March on Washington became the first step towards equality and justice.

Regardless the fact that by the time when the speech was proclaimed Abraham Lincoln put an end to slavery and signed the Emancipation Proclamation, discrimination and inequality still had a great power and did not decrease at local and even national levels.

This reality inspired King that something should be done in order to “open people’s eyes” and spread the ideas of equality and justice. In his speech, the author makes allusions to the documents that also addressed the same ideas as his speech.

He refers to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Bill of Rights; the author also cites the words from the Declaration of Independence, and addresses the Bible in order to show that God created all people equal and it was the responsibility of every person to preserve that equality. King met a great response from the audience.

The text of the speech was heard by a broad audience due to television and this allowed the author to reach “the hearts” of many people around America.

These days, the text of the speech is widely available for all who wants to read it. It can be found on the Internet at the American Rhetoric and other sites, as well as in many anthologies and books. The audio and video versions of the speech are also available on the Internet.

The main idea the all people should be treated equal is heard in every line of the text. In order to make the speech emotional and persuasive, King made use many stylistic devices, as well as paid a great attention to the content.

“I have a Dream” is a political speech with the elements of a sermon. According to the Aristotelian classification, it is a deliberative speech. The distinctive feature of this type of speech is the purpose of it. It aims at enabling the audience to make a judgment or a decision during the speech.

I Have a Dream: Analysis of the Speech Structure

There are three main parts of the speech: exordium, narration and argumentation and peroratio (introduction, main part and closing) (Black 2008). In every part of the speech, King presents particular information. With regard to the content, structure of the text has a great importance in representation of this content.

Every type of speech should begin with the exordium, “the functions of the exordium are to make the audience attentive, docile and benevolent” (Durgut 2008, n. p.).

Traditionally, the content of the introduction of the speech should present the salutation of the audience, the main idea and some general additional information to attract the listeners’ attention. Martin Luther King managed to include all the points into one sentence, “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 our nation” (King 1963, n. p.).

Furthermore, the narration presents arguments, evidences and prospects for the future. The main part of Luther’s speech can also be divided into two parts. The first part of the main text provides the audience with the historical background of the “problem”.

The author describes social and political events that had place “Five score years ago” and the results that people could see “one hundred years later” (3 times) (King 1963, n. p.). In the next paragraphs, he calls people for action telling “now is the time” which he uses four times, “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.

Now is the time to rise from the dark… Now is the time to lift our nation… Now is the time to make justice a reality…” (King 1963, n. p.). The author also set goals for people who are ready to protect their rights and freedoms, “and as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back” (King 1963, n. p.).

He claims that people “can never be satisfied” as long as they have to be the victims of unjust policies and racial prejudice. In order to supper his argument, the author uses convincing evidences which he observed in the society.

He also makes allusions to historical documents, such as The Emancipation Proclamation, the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In addition, he refers to the Bible as to a foundation of the “human law and justice”. The second part of the text is the author’s expectations.

He looks into the future with the words “I Have a Dream”, it is the main theme of the paragraph, as well as the speech as a whole. He begins this part with an emotional introduction, “I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream.

It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream” (King 1963, n. p.). He addresses a strong message for Caucasian people about peace and equality, and he expresses his hope that the positive changes will come in the nearest future, “King gave advice how to act and what to change currently, so his vision of the common future for the American society might come true one day” (Durgut 2008, n. p.).

He claims, “let freedom ring from” all over the United States and people will live happy. This idea is voiced in the peroration of the speech, and it provides strong and persuasive ending of the text.

As it has already been mentioned, King was a skillful orator and his speech is an example of high quality rhetoric. His speech presents all types of appeals, such as ethos, pathos and logos. “Pathos refers to how well you can appeal to someone’s emotion” (Black 2008, p. 48).

Ethos, Logos, & Pathos in I Have a Dream

Dr. Martin Luther King’s persuasive “I Have a Dream” speech was fueled by emotional components. He said that “African Americans were living on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” (Black 2008 p. 48).

He persuaded to give the black Americans the equal rights, in the passage of his speech he says that “all men – yes, black men as well as Caucasians men – would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (King 1963, n. p.).

He uses logos when referring to historical documents and the Bible. Providing that all people are equal and friend, Martin Luther King uses ethos.

Language and style of the speech are bright, expressive and persuasive. He makes use various methods to convince the audience. Thus, he widely uses repetitions of key phrases and “theme words”, make allusions to significant historical events and important documents, provides specific examples to make his arguments significant and use broad metaphors to emphasize important moments and highlight the most important concepts and ideas.

So, the most important phrases that serve to attract the audience’s attention, such as “Now is the time…”, “We can never (cannot) be satisfied…”, “I Have a Dream…”, “Let freedom ring (from) …” are repeated in the successful sentences, or at the beginning of the sentences.

The theme words are repeated extensively through the text, they are “freedom” (20 times), “dream” (11), “we” (30), “our” (17), “justice” (8). Among the most “impressive” metaphors used by King are:

“Joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity”;

“The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity”;

“Rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice”. (King 1963, n. p.).

Thus, we can come to a conclusion that the speech “I Have a Dream” is the most impressive political speeches that had a great influence on the history of the United States, and shaped visions of many Americans.

It is one of the best examples of the rhetorical art and persuasive writing. Thus, as Kenneth Tamarkin & Jeri W. Bayer (2002) say, “Martin Luther’s “I Have a Dream” speech is an eloquent appeal for integration and equality” (p. 399), and the representation of the American dream.

I Have a Dream Analysis: FAQ

• What Am I Have a Dream Speech about? One of the most iconic speeches in US history aims to put an end to racism in America. The key message of I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. Is the importance of equal civil and economic rights for all US citizens.
• What Was the Purpose of the I Have a Dream Speech? In I Have a Dream , Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the issues of racism and segregation in the US. He encouraged using non-violent protests as a weapon to fight inequality.
• When Was the I Have a Dream Speech? The speech was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King presented his speech from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to over 250,000 civil rights supporters.

Reference List

Black, Barry C. (2008). From the hood to the hill: A story of overcoming. New York: Thomas Nelson Inc.

Durgut, Ismail. (2008). “I Have a Dream”: an example of classical rhetoric in a post-modern speech . London: GRIN Verlag.

King, Martin Luther. (1963). I Have a Dream. American Rhetoric . Retrieved from https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Leff, Michael C., & Kauffeld, Fred J. (1989). Texts in context: critical dialogues on significant episodes in American political rhetoric . Davis: Routledge.

Tamarkin, Kenneth, & Bayer, Jeri W. (2002). McGraw-Hill’s GED Social Studies . New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.

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Black History Month 2024

5 mlk speeches you should know. spoiler: 'i have a dream' isn't on the list.

Scott Neuman

The Rev. Ralph Abernathy (left) shakes hands with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Ala., on March 22, 1956, as a big crowd of supporters cheers for King, who had just been found guilty of leading the Montgomery bus boycott. Gene Herrick/AP hide caption

The Rev. Ralph Abernathy (left) shakes hands with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Ala., on March 22, 1956, as a big crowd of supporters cheers for King, who had just been found guilty of leading the Montgomery bus boycott.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s " I Have a Dream " speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, is so famous that it often eclipses his other speeches.

King's greatest contribution to the Civil Rights Movement was his oratory, says Jason Miller, an English professor at North Carolina State University who has written extensively on King's speeches.

Black History Month 2024 has begun. Here's this year's theme and other things to know

"King's first biographer was a dear friend of Dr. King's, L.D. Reddick ," Miller says. Reddick once suggested to King that maybe more marching and less speaking was needed to push the cause of civil rights forward. According to Miller, King is said to have responded, "My dear man, you never deny an artist his medium."

Miller says that in his research, he found numerous examples of King reworking and recycling old speeches. "He would rewrite them ... just to change phrasings and rhythms. And so he prepared a great deal, often 19 lines per page on a yellow legal sheet."

Often, King would write notes to himself in the margins: "what tenor and tone to deliver," Miller says.

That phrasing and an understanding of cadence were all important to the success of these speeches, according to Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, director of graduate studies at the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University.

King's training in the pulpit gave him a strong insight into what moves an audience, she says. "Preachers are performers. They know when to pause. How long to pause. And with what effect. And he certainly was a great user of dramatic pauses."

Here are four of King's speeches that sometimes get overlooked, plus the one he delivered the day before his 1968 assassination. Collectively, they represent historical signposts on the road to civil rights.

" Give Us the Ballot " (May 17, 1957 — Washington, D.C.)

King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial three years to the day after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education , which struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine that had allowed segregation in public schools.

But Jim Crow persisted throughout much of the South. The yearlong Montgomery bus boycott , sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks, had ended only months before King's speech. And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which sought to end disenfranchisement of Black voters, was still eight years away.

"It's a very important speech because he's talking about the importance of voting and he's responding to some of the Southern resistance to the Brown decision," says Vicki Crawford, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Collection at Morehouse College, King's alma mater .

U.S. deputy marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in November 1960. The first-grader was the only Black child enrolled in the school, where parents of white students were boycotting the court-ordered integration law and were taking their children out of school. AP hide caption

U.S. deputy marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in November 1960. The first-grader was the only Black child enrolled in the school, where parents of white students were boycotting the court-ordered integration law and were taking their children out of school.

The speech calls out both major political parties for betraying "the cause of justice" and failing to do enough to ensure civil rights for Blacks. He accuses Democrats of "capitulating to the prejudices and undemocratic practices of the Southern Dixiecrats," referring to the party's pro-segregation wing. The Republicans, King said, had instead capitulated "to the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing, reactionary Northerners."

King speaks at a mass demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on May 17, 1957, as civil rights leaders called on the U.S. government to put more teeth into the Supreme Court's desegregation decisions. Charles Gorry/AP hide caption

King speaks at a mass demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on May 17, 1957, as civil rights leaders called on the U.S. government to put more teeth into the Supreme Court's desegregation decisions.

He also indicts Northern liberals who are "so bent on seeing all sides" that they are "neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm" in their commitment to civil rights.

"King [was] calling on both parties to take a look at themselves," Crawford says.

With the movement gaining steam, King used his speech to take stock of where things stood and what must be done next, Calloway-Thomas says. "He is revisiting the status of African American people."

" Our God Is Marching On! " (March 25, 1965 — Montgomery, Ala.)

The speech was delivered after the last of three Selma-Montgomery marches to call for voting rights. Protesters were beaten by Alabama law enforcement officials at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7 in what came to be known as Bloody Sunday . Among the nearly 60 wounded that day by club-wielding police was John Lewis, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who suffered a fractured skull. (Lewis later served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.) A second attempt to reach Montgomery a few days later was again turned back at the bridge. In a third try, marchers finally reached the steps of the Alabama State Capitol on March 25.

Rep. John Lewis, A Force In The Civil Rights Movement, Dead At 80

"Finally the group of protesters gets all the way to the Capitol, and King delivers a speech to what we think is about 25,000 people," Miller says. The speech is also often referred to as the "How Long? Not Long" speech because of that powerful refrain, Miller says.

Jonathan Eig, author of the biography King: A Life , published last year, says he thinks about three-fourths of the speech was written out. "Then [King] goes off script and gives a sermon."

That's when he answers the question "How long?" for his audience. How long will it be until Black people have the same rights as white people? "Not long, because no lie can live forever," King tells his exuberant listeners.

"That's the part that really echoes. No question," Eig says. "And I think that's when he knew he was at his best. He knew that he could bring the crowd to its feet and inspire them."

Also notable is a famous anecdote that King shared in his speech, one that appeared earlier in his 1963 " Letter from a Birmingham Jail " addressed to his "fellow clergymen." It relates the words of Sister Pollard, a 70-year-old Black woman who had walked everywhere, refusing to ride the Montgomery buses during the 1955-1956 boycott.

"One day, she was asked while walking if she didn't want to ride," King said, speaking to the crowd that had just successfully marched from Selma to Montgomery. "And when she answered, 'No,' the person said, 'Well, aren't you tired?' And with her ungrammatical profundity, she said, 'My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.'"

"And in a real sense this afternoon, we can say that our feet are tired but our souls are rested," he said.

The story of Sister Pollard would be used again in the coming years.

But the speech may be best remembered today for another line, where King said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

In fact, King was using the words of a 19th-century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker . Parker was an abolitionist who secretly funded John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, often seen as an opening salvo of the Civil War. In a sermon given seven years before the raid, Parker used the line that King would pick up more than a century later.

"Dr. King absorbed all kinds of material, heard from others, used it on his own. But this is what we call appropriation or transformation when the old seems new," Miller says.

" Beyond Vietnam " (April 4, 1967 — New York City)

King had already begun speaking out about the war in Vietnam, but this speech was his most forceful statement on the conflict to date. Black soldiers were dying in disproportionate numbers . King noted the irony that in Vietnam, "Negro and white boys" were killing and dying alongside each other "for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools."

"So we watch them, in brutal solidarity, burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago," he said. "I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor."

An infantry soldier runs across a burned-out clearing in Vietnam on Jan. 4, 1967. Horst Faas/AP hide caption

An infantry soldier runs across a burned-out clearing in Vietnam on Jan. 4, 1967.

SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael , a major civil rights figure, had come out against the war and encouraged King to join him. But some in King's own inner circle had cautioned him against speaking about Vietnam.

Code Switch

Stokely carmichael, a philosopher behind the black power movement.

Although powerful and timely, the speech drew a harsh and immediate reaction from a nation that had only just begun to reckon with the rising casualties and economic toll of the war. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times published editorials criticizing it. The Post said King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people" and the Times said he had "dampened his prospects for becoming the Negro leader who might be able to get the nation 'moving again' on civil rights."

King knew he would take heat for the speech, especially from the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, with whom he'd worked to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, a year later, the Voting Rights Act, through Congress. With the presidential election just 19 months away, continued support of Johnson's Vietnam policy was crucial to his reelection. Nearly 10 months after the speech, however, the Tet Offensive launched by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army would help turn U.S. public opinion against the war and lead Johnson to not seek another term.

But in April 1967, the reaction to the speech was "far worse than King or his advisers imagined," says Miller, of North Carolina State University. Johnson "excommunicated" the civil rights leader, he says, adding that even leaders of the NAACP expressed disappointment that King had focused attention on the war.

"His immediate response was that he was crushed," Miller says. "There are a number of people who have documented that he literally broke down in tears when he realized the kind of backlash towards it."

He was criticized from both sides of the political aisle. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., a staunch conservative who made a failed run for the presidency in 1964, said King's speech "could border a bit on treason."

"King himself said that he anguished over doing the speech," says Indiana University's Calloway-Thomas.

" The Three Evils of Society " (Aug. 31, 1967 — Chicago)

The three evils King outlines in this speech are poverty, racism and militarism . Referring to Johnson's Great Society program to help lift rural Americans out of poverty, King said that it had been "shipwrecked off the coast of Asia, on the dreadful peninsula of Vietnam" and that meanwhile, "the poor, Black and white are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Calloway-Thomas calls it "the most scathing critique of American society by King that I have ever read."

"We need, according to him, a radical redistribution of political and economic power," she says, "Is that implying reparations? Is that implying socialism?"

Calloway-Thomas hears in King's words an antecedent to the Black Lives Matter movement. "One sees in that speech some relationship between the rhetoric of Dr. King at that moment and the rhetoric of Black Lives Matter at this moment," she says.

It was also one of the many instances where King quoted poet Langston Hughes, with whom he had become friends. "What happens to a dream deferred? It leads to bewildering frustration and corroding bitterness," King said in a nod to Hughes' most famous poem, " Harlem ."

King and Hughes traveled together to Nigeria in 1960, Miller notes, calling the poet an often unrecognized but nonetheless "central figure" in the early Civil Rights Movement. "They exchanged letters. Dr. King told [Hughes] how much he used his poetry. Dr. King used seven poems by Langston Hughes in his sermons and speeches from 1956 to 1958."

" I've Been to the Mountaintop! " (April 3, 1968 — Memphis, Tenn.)

This is King's last speech, delivered a day before his assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. He was in the city to lend his support and his voice to the city's striking sanitation workers .

"He wasn't expecting to give a speech that night," according to Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King, Jr. centennial professor emeritus at Stanford University. "He was hoping to get out of it. He was not feeling well."

"They call him and say, 'The people here want to hear you. They don't want to hear us.' And plus, the place was packed that night" despite a heavy downpour, Carson says. "I think he recognized that people really wanted to hear him. And despite the state of his health, he decided to go."

Martin Luther King Jr. makes his last public appearance, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968. The following day, King was assassinated on his motel balcony. Charles Kelly/AP hide caption

Martin Luther King Jr. makes his last public appearance, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968. The following day, King was assassinated on his motel balcony.

The haunting words, in which King says, "I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you" have led many people to think he was prophesying his own death the following day at the hands of assassin James Earl Ray .

"The speech really does feel a bit like his own eulogy," says Eig. "He's talking about earthly salvation and heavenly salvation. And, in the end, boldly equating himself with Moses, who doesn't live to see the Promised Land."

The speech is largely, if not entirely, extemporaneous. And by the end, King was exhausted, says Carson. "It's pretty clear when you watch the film that he's not in the best shape."

"He barely makes it to the end," he says.

"But he relied on his audience to bring him along," Carson says. "I think it's one of those speeches where the crowd is inspiring him and he's inspiring them. That's what makes it work."

It's a great speech, made greater still because it was his last, says Calloway-Thomas.

"You have this wonderful man who epitomized the social and political situation in the United States in the 20th century," she says. "There he is, dying so tragically and dreadfully. It has a lot of pity and pathos buried inside it."

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• What did Martin Luther King, Jr., do?
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Historical significance and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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• Table Of Contents

In the years after his death, King remained the most widely known African American leader of his era. His stature as a major historical figure was confirmed by the successful campaign to establish a national holiday in his honor in the United States and by the building of a King memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. , near the Lincoln Memorial , the site of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Many states and municipalities have enacted King holidays, authorized public statues and paintings of him, and named streets, schools, and other entities for him. These efforts to honor King have focused more on his role as a civil rights advocate than on his controversial speeches, during his final year, condemning American intervention in Vietnam and calling for the Poor People’s Campaign .

The King holiday campaign overcame forceful opposition, with critics citing FBI surveillance files suggesting that King was an adulterous radical influenced by communists. Although the release of these files during the 1970s under the Freedom of Information Act fueled the public debate over King’s legacy , the extensive archives that now exist document King’s life and thought and have informed numerous serious studies offering balanced and comprehensive perspectives. Two major books featuring King—David J. Garrow’s Bearing the Cross (1986) and Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters (1988)—won Pulitzer Prizes . Subsequent books and articles reaffirmed King’s historical significance while portraying him as a complex figure: flawed, fallible, and limited in his control over the mass movements with which he was associated, yet also a visionary leader who was deeply committed to achieving social justice through nonviolent means.

Although the idea of a King national holiday did not gain significant congressional support until the late 1970s, efforts to commemorate King’s life began almost immediately after his assassination . In 1968 Rep. John Conyers of Michigan introduced a King holiday bill. The idea gradually began to attract political support once the newly formed Congressional Black Caucus included the holiday in its reform agenda. Coretta Scott King also played a central role in building popular support for the King holiday campaign while serving as founding president of the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change (later renamed the King Center), which became one of the major archives of King’s papers.

Despite the overall conservative trend in American politics in the 1980s, which might have been expected to work against recognition of the efforts of a controversial activist, King holiday advocates gained political support by portraying him as a symbol of the country’s progress in race relations. Musician Stevie Wonder contributed to the campaign by writing and recording “Happy Birthday,” a popular tribute to King. In 1983 Coretta Scott King and Stevie Wonder participated in the 20th Anniversary March on Washington , which drew a bigger crowd than the original march.

After the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the King holiday bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy , Pres. Ronald Reagan put aside his initial doubts and signed the legislation on November 3, 1983, establishing Martin Luther King, Jr., Day , to be celebrated annually on the third Monday in January. Coretta Scott King also succeeded in gaining congressional approval to establish a King Federal Holiday Commission to plan annual celebrations, beginning January 20, 1986, that would encourage “Americans to reflect on the principles of racial equality and nonviolent social change espoused by Dr. King.”

Celebration of the King national holiday did not end contention over King’s legacy, but his status as an American icon became more widely accepted over time. The revelation during the early 1990s that King had plagiarized some of his academic writings and the occasional controversies involving his heirs did little to undermine recognition of King’s enduring impact on the country. Even before the first King national holiday, members of King’s fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, had proposed a permanent memorial in Washington, D.C. By the end of the 20th century, that proposal had secured governmental approval for the site on the Tidal Basin, near the Mall. In 2000 an international design competition ended with the selection of a proposal by ROMA Design Group. To build and maintain the memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation eventually raised more than $100 million. Commemorations of King’s life were also held in other countries, and in 2009 a congressional delegation traveled to India to mark the 50th anniversary of King’s pilgrimage to what he called the “Land of Gandhi.”

Martin Luther King Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on martin luter king.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an African-American leader in the U.S. He lost his life while performing a peaceful protest for the betterment of blacks in America. His real name was Michael King Jr. He completed his studies and attained a Ph.D. After that, he joined the American Civil Right Movement. He was among one of the great men who dedicated their life for the community.

Reason for Martin Luther King to be famous

There are two reasons for someone to be famous either he is a good man or a very bad person. Martin Luther King was among the good one who dedicated his life to the community. Martin Luther King was also known as MLK Jr. He gained popularity after he became the leader and spokesperson of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

Martin Luther King was an American activist, minister, and humanitarian. Also, he had worked for several other causes and actively participated in many protests and boycotts. He was a peaceful man that has faith in Christian beliefs and non-violence. Also, his inspiration for them was the work of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. For his work in the field of civil rights, the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize.

He was a great speaker that motivated the blacks to protest using non-violence. Also, he uses peaceful strategies like a boycott, protest march , and sit-ins, etc. for protests against the government.

Impact of King

King is one of the renowned leaders of the African-American who worked for the welfare of his community throughout his life. He was very famous among the community and is the strongest voice of the community. King and his fellow companies and peaceful protesters forced the government several times to bend their laws. Also, kings’ life made a seismic impact on life and thinking of the blacks. He was among one of the great leaders of the era.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Humanitarian and civil rights work

As we know that King was a civic leader . Also, he has taken part in many civil right campaigns and boycotts like the Bus Boycott, Voting Rights and the most famous March on Washington. In this march along with more than 200,000 people, he marched towards Washington for human right. Also, it’s the largest human right campaign in U.S.A. history. During the protest, he gave a speech named “I Have a Dream” which is history’s one of the renowned speeches.

Death and memorial

During his life working as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement he makes many enemies. Also, the government and plans do everything to hurt his reputation. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. Every year the US celebrates his anniversary as Martin Luther King Jr. day in the US. Also, they honored kings’ memory by naming school and building after him and a Memorial at Independence Mall.

Martin Luther King was a great man who dedicated his whole life for his community. Also, he was an active leader and a great spokesperson that not only served his people but also humanity. It was due to his contribution that the African-American got their civil rights.

Essay Topics on Famous Leaders

• Mahatma Gandhi
• APJ Abdul Kalam
• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Swami Vivekananda
• Mother Teresa
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
• Subhash Chandra Bose
• Abraham Lincoln
• Martin Luther King

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Martin Luther King — Martin Luther King Jr: Influential Figure In The Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King Jr: Influential Figure in The Civil Rights Movement

• Categories: Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King

About this sample

Words: 1959 |

10 min read

Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 1959 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, king's activities, king's influence.

• We are all free and equal. We are all born free. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way.
• Don’t discriminate. These rights belong to everybody, whatever our differences.
• The right to life. We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety.
• No slavery – past and present. Nobody has any right to make us a slave. We cannot make anyone our slave.
• We are all protected by the law. The law is the same for everyone. It must treat us all fairly.
• Fair treatment by fair courts. We can all ask for the law to help us when we are not treated fairly.
• No unfair detainment. Nobody has the right to put us in prison without a good reason and keep us there, or to send us away from our country.
• Innocent until proven guilty. Nobody should be blamed for doing something until it is proven. When people say we did a bad thing we have the right to show it is not true.
• Freedom to move. We all have the right to go where we want in our own country and to travel as we wish.
• The right to a nationality. We all have the right to belong to a country.
• Your own things. Everyone has the right to own things or share them. Nobody should take our things from us without a good reason.
• Freedom of thought. We all have the right to believe in what we want to believe, to have a religion, or to change it if we want.
• Free to say what you want. We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people.
• The right to democracy. We all have the right to take part in the government of our country. Every grown-up should be allowed to choose their own leaders.
• The right to social security. We all have the right to affordable housing, medicine, education, and child care, enough money to live on and medical help if we are ill or old.
• Workers’ rights. Every grown-up has the right to do a job, to a fair wage for their work, and to join a trade union.
• The right to education. Education is a right. Primary school should be free. We should learn about the United Nations and how to get on with others. Our parents can choose what we learn.
• A free and fair world. There must be proper order so we can all enjoy rights and freedoms in our own country and all over the world.
• Nobody can take away these rights and freedoms from us.

Bibliography

• https://www.thoughtco.com/civil-rights-movement-timeline-1951-to-1959-45418
• https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement
• http://www.southeastern.edu/acad_research/programs/writing_center/pick/backissue/volume27/assets/gibson1.pdf
• https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=97
• https://www.mother.ly/parenting/how-mlks-parents-nurtured-his-mind-faith-and-courage
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanraab/2014/01/20/10-people-who-inspired-martin-luther-king-and-he-hoped-would-inspire-us/#77f83d9f79c2
• https://tolerance.tavaana.org/en/content/martin-luther-king-jr-fighting-equal-rights-america
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/martin-luther-kings-vision-change-world.html https://tolerance.tavaana.org/en/content/martin-luther-king-jr-fighting-equal-rights-americahttp://www.southeastern.edu/acad_research/programs/writing_center/pick/backissue/volume27/assets/gibson1.pdfhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Have-A-Dream
• https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
• https://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/civil-rights-movement-timeline
• https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/nonviolent-philosophy-and-self-defense/
• https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycotthttps://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/sclc.htmhttps://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/civil-rights-movement-timeline
• https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/nonviolent-philosophy-and-self-defense/https://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-16-30.html
• https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/mlks-effect-todays-politics-n288421
• https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/opinion-march-washington-john-conyers-martin-luther-king-095978
• https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclchttp://www.ushistory.org/us/54f.asphttps://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/martin-luther-kings-vision-change-world.htmlhttps://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-1-15.html
• https://www.enotes.com/topics/have-dream-speech
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/martin-luther-kings-vision-change-world.html

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