How does Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s effective use of figurative
language and rhetorical appeals to convey a message of empowerment
and encouragement? Analyze this excerpt of his speech and support
your answer with textual evidence.
Excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s I Have A Dream
speech
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of
great trials and tribulations. 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 storms of
persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You
have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with
the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to
Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back
to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to 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
today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream 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. “I have a dream that
one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and
the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together
at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the
state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of
injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
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.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream 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 black boys and black girls will be able to
join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places
will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight;
“and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall
see it together.”2
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the
South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the
mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be
able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a
beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able
to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to
jail together, to stand up for freedom 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 land of liberty, of thee I
sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, From
every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become
true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New
Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when
we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every
state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all
of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in
the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free
at last!
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