I have a dream speech rhetorical analysis

Rather than giving into bitterness and violence, King suggests that his listeners transform their rage into nonviolent action.

By subtly invoking that speech with the term вЂњcreative protest,вЂќ King reinforces a throughline of his thought: that the movement will succeed only as long as activists meet violence with creativity and love. Instead, King wants his listeners to feel validated in their belief that the time for radical change is now, and he wants them to channel that belief into вЂњcreative protest.вЂќ In a 1960 speech, King dubbed the tactic of staging sit-ins at segregated lunch counters вЂњcreative protest.вЂќ He was impressed that the young people leading the sit-ins came up with a protest idea that was peaceful, symbolically powerful, and clear in its message: that Black Americans would not tolerate segregation. But he doesnвЂ™t want that fiery energy to translate into violence or chaos. King knows that by invoking the language of scorching heat and urging a foundation-shifting revolution, heвЂ™s firing people up. Here, the epigraph is the words of Lincoln, who is renowned and praised for his role in ending slavery, although the speech will go on to examine all the work left to be done to create true equality. King telegraphs this to his audience by essentially quoting the opening lines of LincolnвЂ™s famous Gettysburg Address, which began: вЂњFour score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.вЂќ Looking at KingвЂ™s speech through the lens of sermon structure (he was a preacher, after all), LincolnвЂ™s words could be viewed as the sermonвЂ™s epigraph (typically a Bible verse that the sermon goes on to analyze). So not only were he and the protestors at the March on Washington standing literally in LincolnвЂ™s shadow-they were also standing metaphorically in the shadow of the actions he took to end slavery.

King delivered his address from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks out on the National Mall and the Washington Monument.

I have a dream speech rhetorical analysis