I Have a Dream (1963). Detailed description

This speech was given on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. With a civil rights bill before Congress, 250,000 people gathered before the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to advocate its passage. At this highly anticipated event, throughout the day King cited several important reasons why Congress should continue what the Supreme Court had initiated with their historic decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

Many have considered this speech to be one of the greatest speeches given during the 20th century. King’s impressive oratory uses techniques commonly found in sermons to advance his political cause. We can listen to this and other King speeches on the many sites with King audio files on the Internet, such as History and Politics Out Loud: http://www.hpol.org/ record.php?id=72. As one can discern when listening to the speech, the pace of King’s delivery ebbs and flows as he weaves an account of the historical events that made the March on Washington possible.

Even the modulation of his voice changes as he emphasizes points: King uses a gentle but emphatic tone to describe his children and then smoothly transitions to a harsh voice when he refers to southern officials as they use “nullification and interposition” as justifications for fighting desegregation.

When we listen to King’s speeches, we can understand how King used the technique of “call and response”—a tradition that African bondsmen and women took to the New World, one transmitted over centuries and manifesting itself in various forms of expression, including religious observance and public gatherings and in black music—to move his audience from merely listening to actually participating. As the listeners become enraptured participants, comments can be heard as King pauses. “All right now,” “Amen,” and “Yeah, that’s right” echo in the background. At the speech’s conclusion King’s use of this rhetorical technique, refined over his years in the pulpit, succeeds in inciting the audience to anticipate his words, nearly drowning out his own voice—as they recite with him a stanza from a well-known Negro spiritual.

Not only does King deliver “I Have a Dream” in a style familiar to members of the black church, but also he speaks from a perspective common among African Americans, and not unknown to whites as well. Using the conventions of a Baptist preacher, King recalls biblical scenes in which God communicated with patriarchs. For example, King employs Joseph’s prophetic dream of seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, which allowed Egypt to prepare for and eventually avoid disaster. He also references Jacob’s dream of climbing a ladder used by angels to go back and forth to heaven, allowing him to see that God would not leave him alone to face his challenges.

King also drew parallels between his own position and that of Moses, whose vision of the land of milk and honey allowed him the satisfaction of knowing that he had led his people to the promised land. King used these and other Christian images to remind the audience that, as a leader deeply influenced by biblical teachings, he was not acting solely of his own volition. In effect, King stated that the March on Washington and the entire Civil Rights movement were under divine direction and, as such, would be blessed with a victorious outcome if they remained true to their faith.

But it must also be remembered that this was a diverse audience. King understood that solely depending on references that would resonate only with black and white Christians could not unify such a gathering. Thus, King blended these references with others rooted in more commonly held beliefs. Appealing to his audience’s patriotism, King insisted that the United States was founded on the principles he and the Civil Rights movement were fighting for, principles that applied to all Americans—and all peoples.

King refers throughout the speech to the great American experiment first initiated with the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. From the declaration he recited the fundamental assumption that the United States was founded on—“We hold these truths to be self- evident: that all men are created equal.” From the Constitution, King recited its assurance “that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Invoking the fundamental tenets of American political philosophy lends King’s oratory great power. King saw no contradiction between the political goals of the Civil Rights movement and his role as a Christian, spiritual leader.

By the end of the speech, he combines these two in stating that a part of his dream for the nation’s future is that one day “all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My Country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’” Such fervent patriotism rhetorically reminded his listeners that King’s spiritually moving dream for the nation was the dream the nation had for itself.

Fittingly, freedom is a recurrent theme throughout the speech, as it is central to both the Civil Rights movement and the nation’s very existence. As King’s speech makes clear, freedom must be realized in every region, for everyone. For King, freedom means having full citizenship in a system that is just and provides equal opportunity for all. It is important to note that in 1963 the nation had not dealt with racial bigotry, with many citizens still believing that blacks genetically were inferior to whites and that their position in society should reflect these differences.

It was practically impossible for African Americans to vote in most of the South. It was not possible for a motorist to stay in any hotel, eat at any restaurant, or use any public facility without first heeding signs that specified which conveniences were for blacks and which were for whites. In the speech, King identified southern states as not being places of freedom for blacks. He challenged his audience to go to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana and work for change. For southerners this was outrageous. “Outside agitators” and “communists” were seen as the root cause of much of the disruption of the southern way of life. For King to recommend that individuals and organizations enter local communities and work for freedom was insulting to “southern traditions.”

This call to action further confirmed southern suspicions when King recounted his dream of the future, a dream where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.” For many, this vision fueled prejudiced fears of interracial marriage. Marriage and sex across the color line were unthinkably offensive to many people at the time: Polls showed a large majority of white Americans opposed full social and political integration.

King’s fellow marchers, however, disagreed. By the conclusion of the speech, they had become participants in the delivery as they voiced their agreement and support of King’s vision. King ended by noting that freedom would ring regardless of what obstacles lay before it. He chose the national anthem’s references to mountainsides to illustrate again where freedom was most needed.

For Discussion or Writing
1. In the same year that King gave this speech, Malcolm X gave a speech that, when compared with “I Have a Dream,” seems a nightmarish vision of America. Read Malcolm X’s God’s Judgment of White America, thinking about these ideas in terms of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Then, write a well-developed essay comparing the two speeches that argues which is more convincing and why.

2. Research the March on Washington where King delivered his address, using a trustworthy source of information (such as the Web site for the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, which can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/group/ King/encyclopedia/index.htm). What were the responses of the President and Congress to the march and to the speech? Were any of the demands of the marchers met?