MLK Speech Paragraphs

In the speech "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King Jr., he aims to get his followers that African Americans have not been given justice and anyone watching that they must come together as one, peacefully, and get the rights they deserve by creating a common goal. When speaking of the metaphorical "bad check" African Americans have been given he says "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note." You have to remember the context of the time, that most people in America believed that African Americans were not and should not be equal to white people, meaning he is mainly trying to include people who agree with him in this speech. Later on, after mentioning all this injustice, he says "Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation," essentially saying that he and his followers must come together now if they want change. However, he feels "[they] must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence" and to not "[drink] from the cup of bitterness and hatred" as they cannot get what they want through this. Finally, in the "I have a dream" part of the speech, he creates a common goal, that they can follow and try to achieve.

"I Have a Dream" extensively uses metaphors throughout the speech to emphasize the injustice faced by his fellow African Americans, finally ending it by repeatedly using anaphora to then create a common goal to achieve in order to stop this injustice. When speaking of the Emancipation Proclamation, he calls it "a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity." However, right after he says that "one hundred years later the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the chains of discrimination." What he is aiming to do here is mirror the common ideas of slavery, and use them in a way to showcase how segregation is simply a continuation of that slavery. This in effect makes the audience think differently about segregation, and justifies his call to action. In order to achieve this just world he speaks of, he wants to create common goals for his followers to pursue. In order to make them easier to follow and eye-catching, he uses anaphora. "We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence." This in turn makes the audience more immersed in the goal, and puts it into an east context. Then of course, the most famous part of the speech "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed [...] I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." and so on and so on. The reason this is the most famous part of the speech is because it resides with the audience afterwards. This is what everyone listening wants to happen, this isn't just MLK's dream, this is every ones dream.