Rhetorical Analysis Of Mlk's Speech

August 28th, 1963 was the day that ignited the ending of racism and the beginning of equal rights. This day was the day of the March on Washington for jobs and freedom where several civil rights leaders were going to speak, including Martin Luther King Jr. The march consisted of tens of thousands of marchers to press the government for equality. MLK had many people help him write his speech, but once they were done helping, he made all different kinds of changes and corrections to make it perfect; he stayed up until 4 am the night before perfecting it. One of his advisers ,Wyatt Walker, suggested to him, “Don't use the lines about 'I have a dream',It's trite, it's cliche; You've used it too many times already.” (Younge Online). MLK took Wyatt’s

advice and didn’t put ‘I have a Dream’ anywhere in his speech. After many speakers, MLK was the final one. MLK was almost through with his speech but one woman by the name of Mahalia Jackson noticed he was falling short and didn’t have a lot of power in his speech, and that's when Mahalia( who was standing behind him) yelled, “Tell them about the dream!” (Younge Online). Once he said that first ‘I have a dream’, everyone knew his speech was about to take off. Nobody thought that 50 years later MLK would still be remembered for this speech, but today we see it as the most memorable speech for the civil rights movement. MLK wanted to inspire americans to take direct actions to stop racism and make racial equality happen and he did just that.
All great speeches have at least one out of three appeals to make people more interested, and MLK did a good job using all three.

One of his strongest appeals was pathos; MLK used a lot of quotes to evoke an emotional response from his audience throughout his speech. A line that caught my eye was when MLK declared, “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”(King Online). By saying this, MLK was trying to provoke empathy from other parents; he made other parents imagine their children getting judged by their skin color or something that they cannot change so then they would want to try and help end racism. MLK also used ethos in his speech, by using “we” is showing that he knows what he’s talking about because he’s lived through racial inequality and had to deal with racism. In his speech, he stated, “So we have come to cash this check-- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice” (King Online). MLK is saying that all black americans have received a bad check, and they are ready to cash it for racial justice. The last appeal he used was logos; MLK states, “all men, yes, black men as well as the white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (King Online). MLK is saying if we get rid of racial inequality, all men will get the rights to life that

everyone deserves and that we should want everyone to be treated equal.
There are many components to crafting a great speech, and one of the best components is using rhetorical devices.

The first rhetorical device that MLK uses in his speech is anaphora; he used this much more than once, and that’s why I think his speech was so memorable. The most known example of anaphora is when he says “I have a dream” (King Online). In one paragraph, he starts almost every sentence stating that he has a dream--which made the audience aware that he had a dream and that he is very passionate about fulfilling it. Another rhetorical device MLK used was tricolon; he also used this one quite a lot. An example of tricolon was when he realized the audience grew tired of listening to him and he shouted, “Go back to Mississippi, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia…” When MLK said this statement, he instantly grabbed the audience's attention. The last rhetorical device i'll talk about MLK using is a diacope. MLK demonstrated a diacope when he said, “ Free at last! Thank god almighty we are free at last!”. In this sentence he is showing the strong emotion that every black american would experience once they are free from discrimination. MLK used many more than three rhetorical devices in his speech but those are the ones that I believe stood out the

most.
All MLK ever wanted was African Americans to live free from discrimination, and his speech on August 28th, 1963 made that possible. Martin Luther King Jr. used many appeals and rhetorical devices to create a speech that would be remembered by all for years to come. Even now, over fifty years after his speech we commemorate his work with a holiday. Pathos is used most often in his speech, by explaining how inhumanely African Americans have been treated throughout time. MLK emphatically uses “we” throughout his speech to appeal to his audience with ethos or ethics. He appeals to the audience with logos when he emphasizes that all people, regardless of race, are human beings and should be treated as such. Both his appeals and his chosen rhetorical devices clearly restate his thesis time and time again, hoping that all people “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” (King Online).