Rhetorical Analysis Of I Have A Dream Speech

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Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream”
A leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., a Baptist Minister, and a social activist was born, January 15, 1929. Martin Luther King Jr. was a very advanced student. When he attended Brooker T. Washington he skipped his ninth and eleventh years and went to Morehouse College in Atlanta. King had a big part in ending legal segregation, the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1964 he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice, he was the youngest person to receive the award at the age of 35. August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech that is known as one of the greatest speeches ever given. Martin Luther King Jr. himself even started his speech off with a captivating opening saying that it will be the “greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” (“Martin Luther King, Jr.” 1)
As it is easily recognized that King uses repetition throughout his speech. Using so much repetition in his speech helped the audience understand what he was meaning, it helped them accept his idea that
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used metaphors to help create the audience visualize what he is saying. “One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’”(“King” 3) Being a Baptist Minister he uses a metaphor that came from the Bible that not everyone picked up on right away. “Let us not seek to satisfy thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” (“King” 4) By using these metaphors it most likely helped the white people picture what was happening in the life of a colored person, to get their side of the