I Had a Dream Essay

Sara Phillips
November 22, 2016 1A

In Martin Luther King, Jrs persuasive piece entitled I Have a Dream, regarding

African Americans rights to the people attending the March on Washington, he shifts from the

description of injustice to hopes for the future in order to prove that the audience should fight for

their rights because the life of the Negro [is] crippled by segregation and deserves to gain

freedom.

King focuses on the audience's need to stand together in order to justify their right

peacefully protest the unjust behavior of the police forces. In his speech, King uses the

influential repetition of I have a dream (paragraphs 18-25) to encourage the people at the

March on Washington to believe his is dream as much as he does. His dream of being free,

ending segregation, and changing the war. Also, the repetition of I draws the audience's

attention to King. This attention allows him to act as a representative for the African American

community, giving a voice to those who cannot speak their mind. By acting acting as a

representative, King encourages the audience to be an active part of the the fight. King also

encourages believers in God to become an active member of the fight because as a pastor, his

dream was seen as a message from God. While mentioning his dream, King uses strong imagery

to capture the audience. In his dream he sees the cruel environment many slaves live in, he sees a

way to better the nation, and he sees a way to improve the African Americans quality of life. In

Kings speech, he also uses hard-hitting connotation when saying [a] quest for freedom left

you staggered by the winds of police brutality (paragraph 14). The two connotations to this

quote are: being physically beaten by police, being socially oppressed, and mentally damaged by
the brutality. In order to overcome police brutality, King mentions their quest for freedom

(paragraph 14) using strong diction. In this quest King is searching for the freedom of African

Americans. However, their efforts resulted in more oppression leaving them defeated and afraid

of the continuation of police brutality and oppression.