Lincoln Clayton

July 8,2015
Rhetorical Analysis
I Have a Dream
In the speech I Have a Dream, by Martin Luther King, there is an abundance of inspiring,
emotional, and strong messages being displayed through a powerful voice on a stage. With a
solid speaker the people are able to catch the emotion he brings to the speech and due to this
emotional side we know that I Have a Dream is an example of pathos.
One of Americas most famous civil rights acts began on August 28, 1936 marching to
the Washington mall from the Washington monument to the Lincoln Memorial to give his
speech. In the time of racism and discrimination, also the fact that Martin was a colored man, one
might think the audience for this speech only appealed to African Americans. This assumption
would be extremely wrong. Dr. King did not only want to give his fellow African Americans
words to be prideful about, he wanted to create a global phenomenon to push racism out of the
door of life. Heartless Americans that have grown to discriminate all raises were one of the main
people in this large audience Dr. King wanted to reach out and change, showing them that all
people are equal and deserve the same respect.
In this speech Dr. King starts off this speech very strong and jumps right into the issues of
hardship. He stated that this was what African Americans faced when America became a strong
symbol of hope and freedom. The right of every colored and pale man was addressed in the
speech. He made claim to the fact that each human being contains the right to live, have liberty,

and have the pursuit of true happiness. In the Constitution he quoted the Declaration of
Independence start to finish stating the words of freedoms and rules our past fathers had laid
down when establishing this great nation.
The big picture in this speech is not to blame people for the wrong doings that were
happing in the nation but to solve a nationwide problem and help open the eyes of people not
willing to except change and people who arent quite the same as them. Showing respect to all
races Dr. King did not point fingers at the Caucasians he acted as if all races had something to do
with this but at the same time he said that, together as a unified group full of an abundance of
races, we can break this war of racism and live peacefully and happily together.
I Have a Dream speech expresses the longing hope of an entire race spoken through one
man. Taking this speech personally Dr. King brings his family into the speech by saying, 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. This specific line has impacted civil
rights and still is very relevant today. African Americans are not looked down on anymore and
instead of judging a book by its cover more and more people are starting to open this book and
slowly get to know it. This speech has impacted a nation and was definitely a voice heard around
the world. Not only inspiring and giving people hope his message changed an entire nation and
allowed more people to open their hearts to things in life that are different at first but same in the
long run.