You Had The Dream, Dr. King.

In this article, Martin Luther King, JR, is trying to persuade the racist white men of the south, the politicians with power, and all Negroes and all people everywhere to not rest until liberty and justice is provide to all men by using highly patriotic examples in history and a lively, spiritual gospel theme in a fiery speech. By analyzing Dr. King’s powerful and uplifting tones and his vivid imageries, I will show that his dream has and is coming true. We are much, much closer to sitting down at the table of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, JR does not need elaborate introductions and many famous people to back him up. His ethos is displayed boldly by the men who surrounded him at the pulpit. His integrity was established by his love of the founding fathers. We can tell by the tens of thousands of people gathered at his feet that he was already loved and beloved. He addresses both emotion and logical feeling to the issue of equal rights, though emotion is obviously his objective. He makes note of the founding fathers and their early documents of liberty. He speaks of Abraham Lincoln and his choice to free the slaves. He gives these as enriched, powerful, and brief history lessons to show where we have been and what we’ve come to. The tools of patriotism are always followed by emotional imagery.
Dr. King speaks of economics, which is to most of the audience a very emotional topic. He paints the image of an island of poverty that the slaves of old were shipped to and it is the same island that the modern Negro is still stranded on in the sea of selfish racism. He makes a metaphor of a check that the Negroes have to offer America, but it is a check that has figuratively bounced. He calls it a check of insufficient funds and his physical audience applauds.
Another main picture he describes is the table of brotherhood and equality. This is a table that he wants all the children to be able to share one day, and certainly everyone at the speech was either parents or children. He dreams that it will be a table without any “whites only” signs to disgrace the dignity and future of the children. His great dream is the most powerful tool that he has and it is often the only great thing remembered in his speech. He uses repetition with this phrase and as his voice raises his words become more firm and he enlightens the vast congregation with an allusion to great bible stories in the present day. All in the range of his voice feel his spirit and conviction.
I am aware that Martin Luther King JR avoided many fallacies such as hasty generalization and slippery slope. He avoided them because of his faith in the progress that would soon be made. He made claims of America’s potential to be the great nation that the founders believed it to be because he believed in his dream that equal rights would be granted to all, and because of that he avoided slippery slope. I suppose he used something towards the bandwagon tactic when he proclaimed that everyone should return to their respective home state and shout for freedom from every hill and mountain top.
On that day in August 1963, Martin Luther King JR rallied many races and people together for a change in the right direction of freedom. Did he succeed? History says yes and also everyone that stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial shouted and praised his powerful and spiritual influence. A short time later the first steps of his dream were realized and America was now a home for all people, white and black.