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More than 40 years ago, in August 1963, Martin Luther King electrified America with his momentous ‘I
Have A Dream’ speech, dramatically delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

His soaring rhetoric demanding racial justice and an integrated society became a mantra for the black
community and is as familiar to subsequent generations of Americans as the US Declaration of
Independence. His words proved to be a touchstone for understanding the social and political upheaval
of the time and gave the nation a vocabulary to express what was happening.

The key message in the speech is that all people are created equal and, although not the case in America
at the time, King felt it must be the case for the future. He argued passionately and powerfully.

So what were his compositional strategies and techniques?

Certainly King’s speech was well researched. In preparation he studied the Bible, The Gettysburg Address
and the US Declaration of Independence and he alludes to all three in his address.

Stylistically the speech has been described as a political treatise, a work of poetry, and a masterfully
delivered and improvised sermon, bursting with biblical language and imagery. As well as rhythm and
frequent repetition, alliteration is a hallmark device, used to bang home key points.

The format is simple – always an aid to memorability! It falls into two parts.

The first half portrays not an idealised American dream but a picture of a seething American nightmare of
racial injustice. It calls for action in a series of themed paragraphs. “Now is the time” is the first:

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time
to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to
make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of
segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of
God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of
brotherhood.

Likewise the theme “we can never be satisfied” sets some goals:

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are
those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "when will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied
as long as the Negro is the victim of unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as
long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways
and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller
ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a
Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will
not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

The second half of the speech paints the dream of a better, fairer future of racial harmony and
integration.

The most famous paragraph carries the theme “I have a dream” and the phrase is repeated constantly to
hammer home King’s inspirational concepts:

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a
dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed --- "We
hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former
slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of
injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by
the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the
words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and
black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and
brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low,
and rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

While the address has a very strong message for white people and hints at revolution, King’s words are
mostly about peace, offering a vision everyone could buy into. At the end of the speech he brings in a
unifying passage themed around freedom:
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning "My country 'tis of
thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from
every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must come true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious
hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring
from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California.

But not only that — let freedom ring from Stone Mountain in Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and
every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old
Negro spiritual,

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Three factors added to the impact of the speech:

• The remarkable emotion of King’s delivery in terms of both voice and body
• The site at which it was delivered – on the steps of the memorial to the President who defeated
southern states over the issue of slavery
• The mood of the day, a sense of perpetuated slavery among black people and the gradual realisation of
a sense of guilt among white people

Described by one linguistic scholar, King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was “not a legal brief on the
intricacies of the civil rights movement in America, nor an intellectual treatise on the plight of black
people.” Rather, it was a “fervent emotional sermon, forged out of the language and spirit of democracy.
King’s mastery of the spoken word, his magnetism, and his sincerity raised familiar platitudes from cliché
to commandment.”

Click on the following link for a full transcript of the Martin Luther King Speech

Footnote:
‘I Have A Dream’ has been widely acclaimed as a rhetorical masterpiece. What is Rhetoric?
Here are some famous definitions:

Plato: [Rhetoric] is the “art of enchanting the soul.” (The art of winning the soul by discourse.)

Aristotle: Rhetoric is “the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of
persuasion.”

Cicero: “Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria,
and pronunciatio.” Rhetoric is “speech designed to persuade.”

Quintilian: “Rhetoric is the art of speaking well.”

Francis Bacon: “The duty and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of
the will.”

George Campbell: [Rhetoric] is “that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end. The four ends
of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence
the will.”

Speech Analysis: I Have a Dream – Martin

Luther King Jr.
by Andrew Dlugan
Jan 18th, 2009
 “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most memorable speeches
of all time.

It is worthy of lengthy study as we can all learn speechwriting skills from King’s
historic masterpiece.

This article is the latest in a series of video speech critiques which help you
analyze and learn from excellent speeches.

Speech Video: Martin Luther King Jr. delivers “I

Have a Dream”
I encourage you to:

1. Watch the video;
2. Read the analysis in this speech critique;
3. Study the speech text in the complete transcript; and
4. Share your thoughts on this presentation.
 Speech Critique – I Have a Dream – Martin Luther
King Jr.
Much of the greatness of this speech is tied to its historical context, a topic which
goes beyond the scope of this article.

Instead, I’ll focus on five key lessons in speechwriting that we can extract from
Martin Luther King’s most famous speech.

1. Emphasize phrases by repeating at the beginning of sentences

2. Repeat key “theme” words throughout your speech

3. Utilize appropriate quotations or allusions

4. Use specific examples to “ground” your arguments

5. Use metaphors to highlight contrasting concepts

Lesson #1: Emphasize Phrases by Repeating at the Beginning of

Sentences
Anaphora (repeating words at the beginning of neighbouring clauses) is a
commonly used rhetorical device. Repeating the words twice sets the pattern, and
further repetitions emphasize the pattern and increase the rhetorical effect.

“I have a dream” is repeated in eight successive sentences, and is one of the most
often cited examples of anaphora in modern rhetoric. But this is just one of eight
occurrences of anaphora in this speech. By order of introduction, here are the key
phrases:
 “One hundred years later…” [paragraph 3]
 “Now is the time…” [paragraph 6]
 “We must…” [paragraph 8]
 “We can never (cannot) be satisfied…” [paragraph 13]
 “Go back to…” [paragraph 14]
 “I Have a Dream…” [paragraphs 16 through 24]
 “With this faith, …” [paragraph 26]
 “Let freedom ring (from) …” [paragraphs 27 through 41]
Read those repeated phrases in sequence. Even in the absence of the
remainder of the speech, these key phrases tell much of King’s story. Emphasis
 through repetition makes these phrases more memorable, and, by extension,
makeKing’s story more memorable.

Lesson #2: Repeat Key “Theme” Words Throughout Your

Speech
Repetition in forms like anaphora is quite obvious, but there are more subtle ways
to use repetition as well. One way is to repeat key “theme” words throughout the
body of your speech.
If you count the frequency of words used in King’s “I Have a Dream”, very
interesting patterns emerge. The most commonly used noun is freedom, which is
used twenty times in the speech. This makes sense, since freedom is one of
theprimary themes of the speech.

Other key themes? Consider these commonly repeated words:

 freedom (20 times)

 we (30 times), our (17 times), you (8 times)

 nation (10 times), america (5 times), american (4 times)

 justice (8 times) and injustice (3 times)

 dream (11 times)

“I Have a Dream” can be summarized in the view below, which associates the size
of the word with its frequency.

Lesson #3: Utilize Appropriate Quotations or Allusions

 Evoking historic and literary references is a powerful speechwriting technique which
can be executed explicitly (a direct quotation) or implicitly (allusion).

You can improve the credibility of your arguments by referring to the (appropriate)
words of credible speakers/writers in your speech. Consider the allusions used by
Martin Luther King Jr.:

 “Five score years ago…” [paragraph 2] refers to Lincoln’s famous

Gettysburg Address speech which began “Four score and seven years ago…”
This allusion is particularly poignant given that King was speaking in front of
the Lincoln Memorial.
 “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” [and the rest of paragraph 4]
is a reference to the United States Declaration of Independence.
 Numerous Biblical allusions provide the moral basis for King’s arguments:

 “It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their

captivity.” [paragraph 2] alludes to Psalms 30:5 “For his anger is but for a
moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but
joy comes with the morning.“
 “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from
the cup of bitterness and hatred.” [paragraph 8] evokes Jeremiah 2:13
“for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the
fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked
cisterns that can hold no water.“
 More biblical allusions from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech can be
found here.

Lesson #4: Use specific examples to “ground” your arguments

Your speech is greatly improved when you provide specific examples which
illustrate your logical (and perhaps theoretical) arguments.

One way that Martin Luther King Jr. accomplishes this is to make numerous
geographic references throughout the speech:

 Mississippi, New York [paragraph 13]

 Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana [14]

 Georgia [18]

 Mississippi [19]

 Alabama [22]

 New Hampshire [32], New York [33], Pennsylvania [34], Colorado [35],
California [36], Georgia [37], Tennessee [38], Mississippi [39]

Note that Mississippi is mentioned on four separate occasions. This is not

accidental; mentioning Mississippi would evoke some of the strongest emotions and
images for his audience.

Additionally, King uses relatively generic geographic references to make his

message more inclusive:

 “slums and ghettos of our northern cities” [paragraph 14]

 “the South” [25]
 “From every mountainside” [40]
 “from every village and every hamlet” [41]

Lesson #5: Use Metaphors to Highlight Contrasting Concepts

Metaphors allow you to associate your speech concepts with concrete images and
emotions.

To highlight the contrast between two abstract concepts, consider associating them
with contrasting concrete metaphors. For example, to contrast segregation with
racial justice, King evokes the contrasting metaphors of dark and desolate valley (of
segregation) and sunlit path (of racial justice.)

 “joyous  daybreak to end the long night  of their captivity” [paragraph 2]

 “the Negro lives on a  lonely island  of poverty in the midst of a  vast
ocean  of material prosperity” [3]
 “rise from the dark and desolate valley  of segregation to the sunlit
pathof racial justice”  [6]
 “This sweltering summer  of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not
pass until there is an  invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.” [7]
 “sweltering with the  heat of oppression, will be transformed into
an oasisof freedom and justice.” [19]
How can you employ contrasting metaphors in your next speech?

Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech

 
Analysis > Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech
 
There are few more well-known or powerful speeches that that given by civil rights leader
Martin Luther King on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28,
1963.
The most famous paragraph, embedded in the middle of the speech is as follows:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal." 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 a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even
the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice
and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I
have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character. I have a dream today."

So lets analyze this for the linguistic power.

Speech words
I have a dream that one day
this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of
its creed: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal."
Analysis
The dream is a frame for the
future and sets the stage for the
rest of the words. 'Dream' is
vague aspiration. 'one day' starts
to make it specific.
A hint of revolution, a threat to
white people, that may be scary
but is tempered by subsequent
words.
A direct quote from Thomas
Jefferson, 3rd US President and
author of the Declaration of
Independence.
Will be accepted as right by
everyone. Lends gravitas to the
speech.
Creed' has religious connotations.
Implication that this is not true
today, over 150 years after it
was said.
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 a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even
the state of Mississippi,
a desert state, sweltering with the
heat of injustice and oppression,
will be transformed into an oasis
of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four
children
Repeating the 'dream',
hammering home the hope for the
future.
'red' hints at blood, implying
pain, struggle and injustice.
Georgia symbolizes the South.
'slaves' implies injustice and is a
highly evocative word for both
black and white people (albeit in
different ways).
Bringing up slavery suggests that
it is still relevant today.
Slave-owners were white. Black
and white are thus brought
together. Repetition of 'slave'
hammers home the point.
'Sons' implies both the weight of
the past and the familial
obligation.
After the tension of the previous
words, this offers reconciliation.
'Table of brotherhood' is a homely
metaphor (both table and
brother) and triggers feelings of
comfort.
Repeating the 'dream' phrase
again to complete a triple.
'even' implies that Mississippi is
one of the worst examples of
racism. Yet this, too, is included
in the dream.
'state' points at the formal State
organization, noting that racism
is institutionalized there.
The southern state is hot. This is
converted into oppressive heat in
this powerful metaphor.
Release again. After a tension-
filled early part of the sentence, it
ends with hope.
'transformed' implies deep
change.
The dream metaphor again. Now
it is turning from a triple into a
theme.
 Children are always evocative.
'my' makes it personal to King
and hence also personal to
everyone listening.

will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by
the color of their skin
Evoking the whole country - not
just the south.
'judge' is a word associated with
oppression, which is mentioned
earlier.
'color of skin' points to the heart
of the matter.

but by the content of their Again, a softener at the end. Note

character. the 'c's that alliterate 'content'
and 'character'. 'c' is also a
percussive consonant that bangs
out the message. (the 'b's of 'but
by' also have this effect).
I have a dream today. Ending as beginning, bracketing
the whole paragraph.
Note that this is said on a rising
upswing, not as a declining
completion.

 
This is impressive stuff, but what is missing, that adds even more power?
First, there is the remarkable emotion in King's voice and body as he made the speech.
Secondly was the context, in the heart of capital city, on the steps to the memorial of the
President who defeated the Southern states over the issue of slavery.
Thirdly, the zeitgeist of the day, the feeling and flavor of perpetuated slavery of black
people in the continued racial bias, their rising up against this and the gradual realization of
guilt in white people who stood by and did nothing. It was King's words and actions that
prodded Kennedy into taking up the banner.
What was missed by some, was that King's address had a very strong message for white
people, possibly as primary targets. Whilst he hinted at revolution, his words were mostly
about peace, thus offering a vision into which everyone could buy.