I Have a Dream

by Martin Luther king, Jr.

Negro spiritual:

Building vocabulary

A.

Understanding the writer’s ideas

1. Lincoln. 2. The lack of freedom and the manifold inequality

suffered by African Americans. 3. The Constitution and Declaration of

Independence were a “promissory note” for all future generations of Americans, but this promise has been denied to the Negro people (pars. 3 & 4). King has brought his followers to Washington to cash this check and demand “the riches freedom and the security of justice.”

Understanding the writer’s ideas

4. This is not for gradualism, he says, no time to put off what has long been left undone. Action is required immediately.

5. To refrain from hatred, violence, and stereotyping of all white people as racists—but not to rest satisfied until justice is done.

6. He turns the argument on its head, saying the Negro people can never be satisfied with inequality and injustice (par. 7).

Understanding the writer’s ideas

7. Despite the challenges and the obstacles, King retains the hope that the promise of freedom and equality for all in America will be fulfilled.

8. By identifying his dream with the American dream and associating his cause with the words of the anthem, “My country ‘tis of thee.” He also embraces all Americans and all parts of America—north and south, Catholics and Protestants, etc.

Understanding the writer’s ideas

9. To return to the keynote, to emphasize to others that is a Negro cause; and to draw in conclusion on the deepest sources of Negro feeling and belief.

Understanding the writer’s techniques

1. Intended as an inspirational address, the speech uses repetition and highly metaphorical figures of speech far more than would be appropriate in expository prose (e.g. “seared in the flames of withering injustice,” par. 1; “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice,” par. 4).

Understanding the writer’s techniques

2. Slavery was an economic arrangement; insofar as full emancipation cannot be achieved without economic equality, the “cash” metaphor is appropriate.

3. The Old Testament centers significantly on the sorrow of the Jews in their exile.

4. King’s thesis has two parts. First, he wants to say generally why the March on Washington has occurred: “we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition” (par. 2).

Understanding the writer’s techniques

4. Second, he wants to emphasize the necessary conclusion in thought that this dramatization leads to: “When we let freedom ring…we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children (can say) ‘Free at last!’” (par. 27).

Understanding the writer’s techniques

5. The immediate audience, clearly, is the one in front of him at the Lincoln Memorial (“we have come here…” par. 2). He alludes, too, to militant tendencies with in the Civil Rights movement (“We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence,” par. 6), and to those urging gradualism or mocking him with being never satisfied (par. 7). At the close, in invoking the grand American tradition of democracy, he appeals beyond the immediate to all right thinking Americans (pars. 20-27).

Understanding the writer’s techniques

6. By appeal to their religious convictions and by making the present travail of the Negro analogous to the familiar biblical stories of injustice and suffering. By rousing language, especially repetition. By frequent allusion to eloquent passages in the literary or popular tradition (Shakespeare, for example). By invoking the emotive touchstones of the national tradition—Gettysburg Address, “My country, ‘tis of thee,” etc.

Understanding the writer’s techniques 7. To be certain that those not familiar with

the exact words hear them, and to be able to draw on the phrase, “Let freedom ring.” He wants to embrace all of the country, every corner, including the darkest, most backward, most staunchly racist corner: Mississippi.

8. Modulation of language and tone to address his audience. Refutation (par. 7). Analogy. Analysis (par. 2)

Understanding the writer’s techniques

9. Repetition is one of King’s device to move his audience.

10. They not only capture the main point of the essay but frame it in the words of a source deeply rooted in the emotional and cultural traditions of his audience.