In Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, King talks about how society stands by as many black African American citizen’s civil and economic rights are taken away everyday, and yet no one has done anything to change it. King also brings up the terrors of police brutality, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.”. The main idea of the “I Have a Dream” speech is King wanted equal civil rights for blacks and whites, and to tell people that it doesn't matter what your race is, you’re the same.
King uses the literary device of allusion by using a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s speech, a famous African-American spiritual, and the song “My country, ‘Tis of thee” by Dolly Parton. As King shows the similarities of these intellectual achievements; the speech begins with “Five score years ago…”, a reference to the Gettysburg Address, “My country 'tis of …show more content…
The phrase “I have a dream” is repeated many times throughout the speech, but it accentuates three examples that support the main idea of the speech. In the middle of the speech, King says “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 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.”, and “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.””, showing the idea that it doesn’t matter what race you