Speech analysis: I Have a Dream

Speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., USA.
Analysis presented by Eamonn Ryan

Introduction

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech is the masterpiece of 20thCentury oratory. We can learn a lot from it. I encourarge you to:

click Play on the video below
as you listen to Dr. King, read along using the annotated transcript that you will find below the video
you can click on any of the highlighted words/phrases in the transcript to see a brief explanation of the rhetorical devices and techniques used.
most of those annotations contain a link to see further information on the device/technique used.

Notes

Sometimes a phrase may contain more than one rhetorical device. When this happens, we do one of two things:

we tag part of it, and use the tooltip to explain the full part of the phrase that demonstrates that device.
we ignore it, on the basis that there are plenty other highlighted examples of the device used in the speech.

It is impossible to read each full tooltip and still keep up with the pace of the speech. Feel free to pause the speech as needed, or listen to thespeech multiple times, focusing on different devices each time. You can 'popout' the video which will make it easier to control it as you go furtherdown the page.

Annotated transcript

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
a great American, in whose ymbolic hadow we tand today, igned the Emancipation Proclamation. of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been of withering injustice. of their captivity.
But the Negro is not free. the life of the Negro is sadly , the Negro ives on a the Negro is languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to . When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "ife, iberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her itizens of olor are oncerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
ut we refuse to elieve that the ank of justice is ankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've ome to ash this heck, a heck that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. to make real the promises of democracy. to rise from the ark and esolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This weltering ummer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not eek to atisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of ignity and iscipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The arvelous new ilitancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
walk alone.
And as e alk, e must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
turn back.
cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are tripped of their elf-hood and robbed of their dignity by igns tating: "For Whites Only." as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a egro in ew York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down , and righteousness ."
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great rials and ribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the of persecution and staggered by the of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of oday and omorrow, I still have a dream. It is a ream eeply rooted in the American ream.
that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the ons of formerlaves and the ons of former lave owners will be able to it down together at the table of brotherhood.
that one day even the state of Mississippi, a tate weltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
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 ontent of their haracter.
today!
that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little lack oys and lack girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
today!
that one day ."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. , we will be able to transform the of brotherhood. , we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up or reedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet and of iberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the ilgrim's ride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
from the ighty ountains of New York.
from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
from the urvaceous slopes of alifornia.
But not only that:
from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
from hill and olehill of ississippi.
From mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from village and hamlet, from state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, , , , will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last! , we are free at last!