Great speeches in history and culture

Speech Analysis of "I Have a Dream"

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech was given during the March on Washington, an event where civil rights activists from all over America rallied at the nation's capital to revitalize the energy of the movement. The subject of the speech is the need for America to fulfill its promise, made so long ago, to African-Americans, that all Americans should enjoy the full rights of American citizenship. The purpose of the speech, which occurred during the height of the Civil Rights movement after the movement had won many political victories, was to commemorate the struggle of the persons in the movement, and also to persuade the nation's leaders that not enough had been done, and more efforts were needed, to create an American reality that truly fulfilled the dream of the nation's Founding Fathers.

King's speech was designed to persuade White as well as Black Americans. This aim is reflected in the most famous section of the speech, as King envisions an America where persons of all races, religions, and ethnicities can come together in a common spirit of freedom. His stress upon his own children, and the children of the future illustrate that he knows the struggle for justice will be a long one. He will not necessarily see the dream of freedom realized, but his children or his children's children might hold hands with other children in a spirit of brother and sisterhood.

King's introduction is less famous. His first words essentially gain the attention of the assembled throngs, rather than command the audience's attention with persuasive or rhetorical flourishes. "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) King's introduction is 'in the moment' of the point in history of the movement, as he outlines the struggle of Black Americans, through slavery, through the Civil War and subsequent Emancipation Proclamation, to the present-day of August 28, 1963. King establishes how long the march has been for freedom. The march has not been long simply to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a location that he chose because this old monument acts as concrete evidence of the fact that Lincoln's emancipation of Black Americans has yet to truly occur, the march has been long through history. King's introduction is blunt: "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." (King, 1963)

The introduction, however, although not as famous as the speech's conclusion, serves not merely as a crowd-pleaser or an attention getting device to rally the weary souls of the marchers of the movement King lead, but does actually state, quite explicitly, the real, concrete physical goals of the march. King's idealistic conclusion is remembered, but he did not merely call for racial equality, he also called for the American government to fulfill the promise made to African-Americans that they would become equal citizens of the union.