I Have A Dream Rhetorical Analysis

Martin Luther King's speech, "I Have a Dream," was one of the most memorable orations of all times. King's speech was delivered August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in one of the biggest civil rights demonstration gathering in history that comprised more than 250,000 protestors. Much of the greatness of the speech was tied to its historical context; the struggle for social equality for African Americans, and the delivery on that day came as a call to this end. Although it only lasted for 17 minutes, the speech shook the society to its core. It struck directly at the hearts of African Americans across the United States and made whites to feel ashamed of their actions and become willing to make a fresh start. In those 17 minutes, King not only influenced but also informed generations of people regarding racial …show more content…
King supported his speech with the three rhetorical modes of logos, pathos, and ethos, reinforcing them further with different rhetorical schemes and tropes. He structured the speech around the plight of blacks, the truth of the civil rights movement, and the future hope. In the first part, King masterfully paints a picture of the travails of the blacks and says that their life is "crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination," adding that they are living on a "lonely island of poverty" in the middle of a "vast ocean of material prosperity" (SullenToys.com). This depiction gives the whites an intuition of problems the blacks were facing and caused them to reproach themselves for their actions while at the same time striking deeply into the hearts of the