I Have a Dream - Rhetorical Analysis

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to demonstrate his points. For example, towards the middle of his delivery, King urges his audience to “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities…” so to tell them that although they came from suffering, they must go back to the places they came from because they will be rewarded and praised for their suffering (Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream). It will all be worth it in the end because change is coming. All these places are examples of the places that people saw the most drastic and harshest forms of suffering and segregation.

All through the speech, King applies personal pronouns such as “we” and “our” instead of “you” or “me”. This is so that he can relate back to the audience. Rather than making it an experience that only he can relate to, he makes it a communal speech. With that being said, as an African American man in the 1900s, of course Martin Luther King Jr. could relate to his speech about the civil rights of African Americans. However, the more general assumption here is that audience members tend to listen to and relate most to speakers or leaders who relate to them on a more personal level, and make them feel like they matter as well. In addition, his audience is not just filled with African Americans, but people of different ethnic backgrounds including Caucasians. Therefore, by consciously using “we” and “our” while addressing the audience that he did, he made his speech relatable to everyone in the audience and not just the African Americans, evoking everyone’s emotions. He does not antagonize the white people and look to them as the “villains,” which would be an easy thing for any African American to do at the time. Towards the end of the speech, he also refers to “black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics” (Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream), relating back to not just people of different ethnic background, but also to people of different cultural and religious backgrounds, appealing to the audience’s pathos. By doing this, he goes back to one of his arguments about how everyone needs to care about what is happening and want to make a change. He doesn’t just resolve the issue by himself or let others take care of it, but do it together as a society.

Another way that Martin Luther King Jr. utilized pathos is through anaphora. For example, towards the beginning of his speech, King continuously repeats the phrase “one hundred years later” while stating, “But one hundred 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…” (Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream). He does this because he is emphasizing the point that since they are moving forward in history as a population, each individual, and the community as a whole, should be able to move and grow with each other and the time. However, while others are permitted to move forward, others, especially “negroes,” are forced to stay back and not develop as citizens and as a race. Black men, women, and children have been left behind to dwell on the past, while the others are long gone. King does this all through his speech. He frequently repeats phrases and words to emphasize his points and tie them all back together.

Throughout his speech, Martin Luther King Jr. employed multiple rhetorical strategies and devices to evoke his audience’s emotions and to get them to think about the issue at hand. By utilizing all three of the rhetorical strategies: logos, ethos, and pathos, not only was he able to make a valid and logical argument, but he was also able to make an emotional connection with his audience and followers. He made the nation listen, and get invested in fixing the problem together. His speech alone played such an immense role in the Civil Rights Movement, and thanks to him, people of all color live side by side, treating each other as equals.

Works Cited

"Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream." American Rhetoric.com. Trans. Michael E.

Eidenmuller. American Rhetoric, 2001. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

"March on Washington." History.com. Ed. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty. A&E Television

Networks, 1991. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.