Why was the i have a dream speech important

Martin Luther King’s speech is an important part of human rights history and a piece of American and world cultural heritage. All the students who are interested in persuasive speaking study “I have a dream” at the university. Martin Luther King’s speech motivated society for positive chances and protection of Afro-Americans in the legislation and all possible spheres of life. This speech is the most famous in the 20th century and thanks to it the active fight against racism began. Let’s analyze Martin Luther’s peacemaking activity and “I have a dream” in detail.

Martin Luther King facts

He is an interesting personality with a biography that can inspire everyone. Martin Luther King is an American pastor and a famous activist for Afro-Americans’ rights. His main idea is equality in each detail: the possibility to use the same public transport, study at the same school, and so on. He was against segregation and the war in Vietnam. Martin Luther King served as a pastor at the Baptists Church at Montgomery. Moreover, he is the author of the book “Where we go from here: chaos or community?” which was published in 1967. Martin Luther King got the Nobel prize for peace in 1964. But the most famous of his achievements is the “I have a dream” speech, declared on the 28th of August 1963. It is a culmination of the movement for civil rights of the Afro-Americans from 1955—to 1968.

The senses of “I have a dream speech”

The main idea of the speech is to protest against discrimination and to fight for freedom and equality. It is like a sermon with references to the Bible, the US Constitution, and the Declaration of US Independence. Martin Luther King has used many examples from history. There are also comparisons, bright images and antithesis (light and dark), and so on. Repetition is the trait that helps to focus the attention of a listener. It is a speech about all the pain of the Afro-Americans communities. Many people were killed and wounded because of slavery and history is full of tragedies. And it’s high time to change this negative scenario. Moreover, you can read a lot of essays on “I have a dream” speech on the Internet and use free writing samples. Many sources of information are available on the Internet.

Speech as the rhetoric masterpiece

As was mentioned before, “I have a dream” is a cultural heritage and a great lesson for the next generations both to praise freedom and equality and to proclaim persuasive speeches. Martin Luther King was heard because of his passionate and emotional words. He expressed all the pain of the Afro-Americans and said every phrase with a soul. It is the best speech of the 20th century and a real rhetoric masterpiece. All the people that want to persuade effectively should pay attention to Martin Luther King’s speech. It is a part of education in history, law, or sociology. And you have surely heard about this speech at the university campus.

The consequences of delivering a speech

Martin Luther King was heard not only by the public but also by Kennedy’s administration. His speech motivated the state servants for legislative changes and minority rights protection. Thanks to such a speaker the Afro-Americans’ rights movement has achieved great results and equality was considered one of the main values. One of the most fun facts about Martin Luther King jr. is that the author’s rights in the speech were registered. And his family members enjoy these rights now.

The bottom line

The word is power. “I have a dream” is the brightest example of it. Martin Luther King is a very brave person who could persuade everyone, even the most ignorant person. He was a personality who can change history and he is among the most famous peacemakers in the world. And “I have a dream” is a symbol of human rights protection, free lives of Afro-Americans, and cultural heritage as a whole.

Martin Luther King's Most Famous Speech On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" Speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In this historic speech, King said he had a dream that white and black children would one day walk hand in hand and that one day sons of former slaves and sons of former slaveowners would be able to agree to live together.

The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were tremendously difficult times for African-Americans. They were not treated like white Americans simply because of their skin color. And the laws protected the bad treatment they got. Laws requiring "separate" hotels, restaurants, schools, and even drinking fountains were common in many states.

Martin Luther King was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, a drive to get more equal treatment for all Americans, not just white Americans.

This speech was important in several ways:

It brought even greater attention to the Civil Rights Movement, which had been going on for many years. King's speech was part of the March on Washington, a gathering of more than 250,000 people in the nation's capital. African-Americans still were not treated as equals. Marches like this one and ones earlier in Detroit and other cities called attention to this fact.
The speech was given in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, the monument honoring President Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Southern states. By giving his speech there, King was wanting to call attention to how things were so terrible a century before (during the Civil War) and how some things hadn't changed so very much in 100 years.
It brought Martin Luther King and his message of non-violence to a nationwide (and worldwide) audience. The speech was carried on radio and was reprinted in newspapers and magazines all over the United States and all over the world. After this speech, the name Martin Luther King was known to many more people than before.
It made Congress move faster in passing the Civil Rights Act. This set of laws was finally passed the next year, in 1964. Many of these laws gave African-Americans more equal treatment than they ever had before.

Martin Luther King continued to speak out for civil rights and for nonviolence. Sadly, he was killed in 1968. But the memory of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech and the message it contains live on.

Black American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) addresses crowds during the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, where he gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.

I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King Jr. made the I Have a Dream speech on August 28, 1963 during the historical march for jobs and freedom at the Lincoln Memorial. The speech was a culmination of years of the civil rights movement with African Americans fighting for their equality in a society that only saw them as emancipated slaves rather than as human beings. At the time of the speech, Martin Luther King Jr. and other blacks were protesting the institutionalized racism that made it impossible for African Americans to get jobs. It had been years since slave was abolished and white Americans were yet to accept that the black Americans were just as American as they were.

The thing that makes this one of the most memorable speeches in American history is the courage and eloquence with which Martin Luther King Jr. tackles the systemic racism such that even the most racist people could easily recognize where the problem was. An important historical context for this speech is that the abolition of slavery did not end racism in the United States. Also, even with the Declaration of Independence stating that all men are made equal, the American leadership did not necessarily recognize the need for equality for black Americans.

The first thing that one notes about the I Have a Dream speech is that Martin Luther King Jr. was an educated man with a good understanding of rhetoric. Many black Americans at the time had some access to education but only in the schools that were designated for black people. This also meant that in many areas of employment, the black Americans would only qualify for the unskilled and low-skilled work since they were not as educated as their white counterparts. For Martin Luther King Jr. and other black scholars to have the impact that they did on the civil rights movement, they had to be exposed to a lot of education around politics and sociology.

Another important thing to note in this speech is that despite being a rather short speech, the word ‘freedom’ appears about twenty times. Freedom is a primary theme for Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech because his experience of emancipation had not been as wholistic as it would be if the black Americans were given the freedom to take advantage of existing opportunities that were at the time only accessible to white Americans. The use of freedom may seem pedestrian, but it reiterates the objective of the speech.

Also, in the second paragraph, Martin Luther King Jr. specifically uses the phrase ‘five score years ago…’ which alludes to Lincoln’s Gettysburg address where he said ‘four score and seven years ago…’ The implications of using the same words as the nation’s founding father allows the audience to tie in Martin Luther King Jr.’s patriotism and its plausible implications on the prevailing constructs of race and what it meant to be American. It is possible that this word choice was a factor in the effectiveness of the speech in the formulation and passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I Have A Dream’ Speech, In Its Entirety

1963

https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety

Vail, Mark. “The ‘Integrative’ Rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr.’S ‘I Have a Dream’

Speech.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs, vol. 9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 51–78. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/41940035. Accessed 3 Nov. 2020.

This source explains how the speech impacted the audience. It also talks about the

style of the speech and how it was given.

Smith, Andrew C. “Speaking My Mind: Going beyond the Thesis.” The English Journal,

vol. 99, no. 6, 2010, pp. 97–99. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20787678. Accessed 3 Nov.

2020.

This source goes deeper into what Dr. Martin Luther King really means in his

thesis.

Whitehead, Kaye Wise. “‘The Long Arm of Justice’ Swings from the Emancipation

Proclamation to the March on Washington.” Black History Bulletin, vol. 75, no. 2, 2012, 24–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24759674. Accessed 3 Nov. 2020.