Cassell Presnell

Elizabeth Boyd

Honors Humanities

28 October 2021

Persuasive Speech

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” was delivered on April

3rd, 1968, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, where the city’s sanitation workers

were striking. In an attempt to encourage nonviolent protests in the city, King’s words touched

thousands of citizens as a well-known demonstrator and speaker himself, despite being

exhausted from traveling and suffering through a mild fever. This engrossing, ingenious, and

arguably most emotional speech of the beloved activist’s lifetime was his last words spoken to a

crowd of his followers and believers, as less than 24 hours later, he was assassinated by James

Earl Ray.

King’s moving speech began by addressing Ralph Abernathy, who was a clergyman and a

leader within the Civil Rights Movement and had convinced King to come to the assembly that

day. King thanks Abernathy as both a friend and an associate before turning towards the crowd

and inclusively addressing everyone by beginning with what everyone in America was thinking

at the time: “Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world.” Then,

to take his listeners on a journey of imagery and reveal to them how much it means to him to be

in that time and place, King shifts his focus onto religion, which almost everyone at that time

could relate to and understand. He explains that if the Lord above asked him where and when he

would have wanted to be born, he would have chosen the revolutionary second half of the 20th

century. King describes in vivid detail bypassing the cross of the Red Sea, the Gods in Mount
Olympus, the height of the Roman Empire, the changes of the Renaissance, Martin Luther’s 95

theses, and Abraham Lincoln’s greatest moments so that he could be a part of the civil rights

movement that he had helped inspire.

Continuing strong, King makes a bold declaration by saying, “The nation is sick. Trouble

is in the land; confusion all around.” He chooses his words carefully and agrees that the

statement is strange, but begins to list the countries with ongoing revolutions and relates them all

together by their similar yearn for freedom. King then goes on to claim that no longer can they

talk about war and peace, they have to make changes themselves because “it’s nonviolence or

nonexistence.” Returning to his central idea, the speaker requests that the crowd not be

enveloped in negativity, as all they truly should be fighting for is an equal chance in this world as

one of God’s children. The only way to make a true difference, he is convinced, is to combine

efforts as communities, as it has been proved in history that turning against one another could be

the downfall of their peaceful protests. By citing the past, King is able to reach into the hearts of

the audience, most of which are able to remember the events and sympathize with the speaker’s

opinion.

The next part of the speech refocuses on the situation at hand, as King tells his followers

that the injustice in Memphis is no longer tolerable. He explains that no change will be made if

the news outlets can focus on window-breaking riots and not the logical demand of the unfairly

treated sanitation workers. With a surge of passion, King insists that they all march on, just like

hundreds of them had in Birmingham, Alabama, against Bull Connor, dogs, and fire hoses alike.

Again, he uses inclusive language, saying “we” and “us” repeatedly. And, to show how strong

everyone is, he tells them that not even jail time has been able to stop them: “And every now and

then we'd get in jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our
prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs.” King encourages the crowd, addressing

them as not only his people but for Americans as well. He explains to them that their

constitutional rights were written on paper and nobody could take that away from them,

especially if they were given the equal allowance to protest in the first place.

“Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more

than the preacher?” King asks. “Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his

bones.” Because they lived through the mid-1900s and most of the United States population

believed in God, King focused a large part of his speech on prayers and trust in the Lord above.

He names and thanks a few of God’s men, such as James Lawson, Reverend Ralph Jackson, and

Billy Kiles, all of whom fought for the same racial justice. He rhetorically questions the crowd

how religious faith would spur them on to a better tomorrow and they all would eventually create

“the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new

Memphis, Tennessee.” With conviction and confidence, King wholeheartedly believed that those

involved in the revolution were richer than any nation in the world and that they could achieve

equality with peace.

To carry on with the message, King encourages everyone not to buy Coca-Cola, Sealtest

Milk, Wonder Bread, and Hart’s Bread to instead support black institutions. He even goes as far

as to tell everyone to move their money into the Tri-State Bank for a “Bank-In” and eventually

an “Insurance-In” movement. King expresses greatly that everyone needs to pitch in, even if it

means leaving work or school. After telling a story about the Jericho road, King asks the

question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" In perhaps one of the most

emotional and heartwarming sections of the speech, King switches all of the responsibility onto

the onlookers. He explains that people should not be only worried about themselves and their
temporary pleasures if they can make a difference for those suffering in the long run. Then, he

ends his series of requests by thanking God for allowing him to attend the gathering.

King then reflects on the past when he was autographing a book he wrote in New York

City some years ago and was stabbed by a woman. The blade was so close to his aorta that the

smallest movement, even a sneeze could have killed him. While he was in the hospital, he said

he had gotten hundreds of letters, some even from the President and Governor. However, the

most touching was one from a little white girl that said, “And I'm simply writing you to say that

I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.” King then continues his account of the past by listing the

historical achievements the revolution has made and persistently stating why he is happy he

didn’t sneeze. Otherwise, he would have missed the end of segregation in inter-state travel, the

uprising in Albany, Georgia, the Civil Rights Bill, his “I Have A Dream” speech, the movement

in Selma, Alabama, and, finally, his talk to the people in Memphis, Tennessee, where the city’s

sanitation workers were striking.

As he nears the end of his speech, King explains that he is ready for whatever is to come.

He always knew he was in danger because of his position and opinions, but others were always

looking out for him, just as he does for his people. He even goes as far as to explain that he no

longer is afraid of death: “I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the

mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you.

But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” In a perfect

mixture of hope, faith, and love, Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged and persuaded the people of

Memphis to become peaceful protestors. However, as though he was foreshadowing his

inevitable death, King was shot in the neck on the balcony of the Lorraine hotel not long
afterward. The “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech was his last and arguably the most

overlooked of his lifetime.

 Works Cited

Eidenmuller, Michael E. Martin Luther King, Jr. - I've Been to the Mountaintop (April 3, 1968),

American Rhetoric, 3 May 2021,

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm.