How Did Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech

On the 28th of August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr changed the world. On this date in Washington DC, Martin Luther King Jr presented a speech called ‘I have a dream’. Personally as I was reading and listening to this speech it was very emotional and eye opening. As we live in New Zealand where slaves and discrimination is not very present in the modern day, we are not faced with this problem. The most popular line from his speech is “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.” This quote from Martin Luther king Jr’s speech was his dream, a dream that proceeded to come true over the years.

Throughout the speech Martin Luther King Jr is explaining the pain and suffering the Negro’s /‘Black’ citizens and slaves had to go through every day. Martin’s purpose and message of the

speech ‘I have a dream’ is to fight for freedom and basic human rights of the black people in the America. Throughout the speech Martin Luther King Jr refers to the audience a lot, as they were all protesting for black peoples equal rights in society. When Martin Luther King Jr is referring to the audience it creates emotion within the crowd as it is perceived in a personal way. “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.” These few sentences stuck out to me in the speech as it shows that even with all the barriers that kept them protesting they fought for what they believed in and had hope and faith that their situation would get better.

Although America has come along way since 1963, racism is still not fully resolved.

Incidents like the Ferguson police shooting of innocent young black civilians hold the county back from becoming a country that respects equal rights. After reading the speech I was interested in these horrific actions that were still taking place, even if they don't happen often. From reading this speech I have grown an appreciation of how a culture in society can be change is just over 50 years.

I think this speech is an appropriate text for a year 12 audience as it holds significant world history and it shows the audience the importance of understanding problems that weren’t/aren’t necessarily occurring in their society, country or town. Reading this speech gave me a personal understanding of what it must have been like in 1963 America, it shows me how the world has changed in such a little space of time. From 1963 where there were still slaves and the ‘black’ people were segregated from the ‘white’ to 2015 where Obama is the first ‘African American president to serve The United States of

America.