I Have A Dream Speech

Dr. King’s speech is in the style of a sermon which, like many sermons, connects the past and present to tell a moral story. While King makes repeated reference to spiritual elements and “God’s children,” the speech’s rhythm, pacing, and cadence (especially the way King delivered it, which the transcript of the speech cannot capture) are all lifted from the Baptist sermons King watched his father deliver and he, too, delivered as a reverend. Like other sermons, King’s speech uses inclusive pronouns (“we” and “our”) to connect the audience and the speaker; it also employs repetition of key words and phrases and, especially, call and response. The audience’s responses are not included in the transcript of the text, but the repetition is. King provides lists of injustices in identical syntax and repeats this tactic again later when listing locations to celebrate. He also uses full phrases—not just singular words—in repetition. For example, he uses the phrase “I have a dream” at the start of eight separate sentences. This repetition comes straight from the church tradition.

Structurally, the speech, though relatively short, has three parts. In the first, King provides the reason for giving the speech—the March on Washington and the ongoing civil rights movement. In the second, King provides a list of grievances about the past and the present. And in the third, he lists his vision for the future, ending the speech on a high note of optimism. To get there, he makes biblical references and allusions to both history and the patriotic song “America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee),” while also referencing Black spiritual songs.

The opening lines of the speech recall Abraham Lincoln’s famous “Gettysburg Address.” King refers to the date of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln, as “five score years ago” in an obvious call back to Lincoln’s famous opening: “Four score and seven years ago…” King is speaking in front of the Lincoln Memorial and the references to Lincoln’s words and deeds send a powerful reminder that Lincoln’s historical project is still incomplete.

King further expands on history by invoking the words of the Declaration of Independence, that all men “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This was a promise made to future generations, but it is a promise that has so far not included Black people. This rhetorical flourish—on the one hand praising the “magnificent words” of Lincoln and the Founding Fathers while on the other hand pointing out the words have not fulfilled their promise for Black Americans—makes an appeal to shared patriotism criticizing the very gesture of patriotism as hollow. And yet King does not end up criticizing America itself; instead, he continues to imply the promise of America is worth celebrating and is better than America as a nation currently is. If America could just live up to its promise, all men could indeed be free, and only then America would be worth celebrating.

To make this point, King uses the extended metaphor of the “check.” He announces the marchers are in Washington to “cash a check,” but notes America has written a “bad check” for Black people—a check that cannot be cashed due to “insufficient funds.” This metaphor works on multiple levels as it refers both to the promises of the past generation of great Americans, as well as to the current economic plight of Black people. Today, the “I Have a Dream” speech is remembered as a speech primarily about civil rights, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms is often abbreviated as merely the March on Washington; it is largely remembered as a civil rights march and not both a civil rights and economic rights march. The check metaphor simultaneously invokes both missions of the march, even though the economic aspect of the message is often overlooked in favor of the more hopeful rhetoric in the second half of the speech.

Centering focus on only the optimistic ending erases a lot of King’s message—including the actual conditions of the present and especially the urgency he invokes. While the speech clearly calls for a better future, King also announces he wants to “remind America of the fierce urgency of now” and makes references to the events of the summer of 1963. That summer saw nearly 1,000 separate demonstrations in more than 100 American cities with protesters demanding the end of segregation, the right to vote, and full access to education and jobs. The protests were often met with violence from local governments and police forces, and thousands of protesters (including King) were arrested and beaten. Medgar Evers—a leader in the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP—was murdered that June. King references the protests and acts of violence against Black Americans and other protesters, mentioning both the “narrow jail cells” some had endured as well as the “battered” individuals hurt by persecution and “the winds of police brutality.” He specifically references the cruelty in Mississippi, where Evans was murdered, and Alabama where Governor George Wallace used his 1963 inaugural address to call for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Because of the violence of the summer and the backlash to the civil rights protesters, King states it is urgent the fight for equality continue and the marchers cannot drift into gradualism nor settle for anything less than full freedom.

Regarding those issues, King seems to rhetorically place himself between two extreme sides. On the one hand, he anticipates the response of individuals who would ask civil rights proponents, “When will you be satisfied?” On the other, though, he senses the frustration of some audience members who may want to respond to the violence of the state with violence of their own. To the former, he offers a list of conditions in America that prevent anyone from being satisfied. To the latter, he states Black people must remember the White people marching with them and realize that they “cannot walk alone.” He also suggests that “soul force” is the only force to use in response to “physical force.”

King was a strong proponent of nonviolent resistance, but he makes it clear nonviolent resistance is not passive. It will not lead the movement to compromise or slow progress in the name of those asking if they’d had enough. However, he correctly anticipates the violence to come later in the decade (especially 1968) and tries to prevent it by advocating for patience from his followers, promising “faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.” His “dream’s” optimism reminds the audience what redemption looks like and promises idealism can be turned into realism. His “dream” is not only a wish for the future but an achievable goal worth pursuing.

The optimism closing the speech makes it so celebrated today. King does not merely provide a list of historical injustices nor a simple corrective for the future. Instead, he makes a cry for patriotic and spiritual redemption. While King is decidedly critical of the United States’ failure to deliver on its promise to Black citizens, he ends the speech by promising America can undo its sins and live up to its promise by simply letting everyone be free as originally intended. He lists the natural beauty throughout the nation and implies that in a place with such majesty, it is truly unnatural for there to be so much cruelty between countrymen. Indeed, the current state of America is a “crooked” or unnatural one, but the fight for equality will make it “straight.” By granting freedom to everyone and fulfilling King’s dream of racial equality, America and Americans will be saved. America will replace the “vicious racists” and “the heat of injustice” with a nation of brothers living in a land of “freedom and injustice.” The movement will turn a “mountain of despair” into a “stone of hope,” but only if the march for equality and the fight for economic and civil rights continues. King makes it clear this is all possible, ending the speech with the triumphant call of “Free at last!”