I Have a Dream

By King Meera -
Analysis: Context, Content, Form (of Dr Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington)
Rev. King delivered it at the commencement of the 'Great March' or March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

Exactly a hundred years before this historical event, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln to the desired effect of eradicating slavery and racial injustice. However, it was unclear what should happen with slaves; the proclamation did not remove racism or discrimination or address the issue of compensation to slaves or their former owners; and loopholes of citizenship as well as civil concerns rendered the decree a failure.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (henceforth King) notes how, even a hundred years after the decree was passed, the miseries of the black man continue - police brutality, poverty, exile, social immobility, and delay in justice, freedom, equality and citizenship rights.

The political and socio-economic context of the Great March was a century of injustice even after it had been outlawed. Blacks in Mississippi did not have voting rights. Blacks in New York, even though they had voting rights, felt it pointless to because the candidates did not represent them. King was greatly influenced by Gandhian non-violence and peaceful demonstration, and suggested a 'creative protest' against the inequality of the condition of the blacks. He held that unearned suffering (creative suffering) was redemptive.

(Jim Crowe, nullification, interposition, dream concept of earlier sermons)

summary
Para 2:
  • Five score = 5*20 = 100
could have just said 100 years ago, but chose to begin poetically
  • "100 years later" is an anaphora
  • non-violent movement inspired by Gandhi's non-cooperation movement
  • Lincoln a symbol of emancipation
  • Kuklux Klan - Afro American population allowed white supremacy to continue - they were slavish
  • Injustice within the community
  • lists miseries of Negro community
Para 3:
  • Constitution and the Declaration of Independence - historical and political context
  • life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - FOR EVERYBODY, not just whites
  • neatly put; no pointing fingers
  • specific and literary metaphor - bad check
  • no targeting, no pleading; simply expecting
  • bad check metaphor effective because relatable 
Para 5: 
  • hallowed (sermonlike tone and vocabulary) - in the symbolic shadow of Lincoln
  • "This is no time to... and "Now is the time to..." - juxtaposition, anaphora
Para 6:
  • heat images - cool off (laid-back, insensitive) vs sweltering heat (doing something)
  • Poetic use of seasons
Para 7:
  • Love is the solution 
  • "In the process... of wrongful deeds." Very Gandhian
  • Demands rights but at the cost of neither shame  nor violence
Para 8:
  • Creative: peaceful, one of a kind, not destructive
  • Don't assume that all white people are the enemy
  • Taking them into confidence
Para 9:
  • "We can never be satisfied as long as" is an anaphora
  • Police brutality is an allusion to arbitrary and racially biased violence and discrimination against blacks by the police
Para 10: poetic but emphatic
Para 12: antithesis
Para 13: biblical images natural to him coz he's a preacher
Para 14:
  • Victims of brutality
  • Jim Crowe
  • Creative suffering - unique, more and more ways to impose superiority
Para 15:
  • Salvation for all
  • Christian, preachy
  • Unearned suffering is redemptive: no sin on your part so you are innocent and there is redemption for you in God's house
Page 54:
1. Alabama: allusion to George Wallace, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
2. Interposition and nullification: politically loaded terms - laws may be nullified by governed or through interposition, altered
3. Every valley shall be exalted: Isiah 40 verse 4-5 (John the Baptist) - Christian reference; also a metaphor for the highs and lows of society

*special mention: Archibald Carey's speech (also on pg 55)

  • Been using his "dream" since 1955
  • Spiritual insights the night before - biblical words
  • All rhetorical devices including anaphora, metaphors, biblical allusions, juxtaposition and alliteration - are tools that make this speech a Jeremiate and a very powerful one at that

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 7, 2018 at 12:38 PM

    Very helpful analysis o the text I really appreciate it as a Muslim and Pakistani I have very little knowledge about Bible and the American history. Now I can make things easy for my students as far as this speech is concerned. Thank you

    ReplyDelete

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