Martin Luther King's I Have Essay

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred…We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force…the marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

The author makes two essential logical distinctions in those passages: first, that between civil disobedience methods that manifest dignity and discipline from those that are merely wrongful and unjust expressions of bitterness and hatred. Second, the author makes the expressly logical argument that the fight that must be fought is only against those white Americans who oppose justice and equality and that American blacks must work together with those white Americans who are already also on the right side of justice.

The author does not explicitly use the rhetorical technique of ethos except by including himself indirectly as a member of the oppressed group to whom he speaks, such as in the following passage:

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your 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.

The author refers to the members of his audience as having already experienced "great trials and tribulations" and he refers to some of them as having recently been imprisoned, knowing full well that all of them already acutely aware of his recently having been jailed in Birmingham. Likewise, he refers to police brutality, also knowing that his audience is aware of his own recent experiences in that regard.

Conclusion

There is no question that Reverend Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech was a monumental point of the American Civil Rights Era. From a rhetorical perspective, the speech is most notable for its use of two of the three rhetorical approaches: logos and pathos. The author's main appeal to logos consists of his distinction between just and unjust means of achieving necessary social change and between racist-minded white Americans and justice-minded white Americans. The author's main appeal to pathos consists of metaphorical references to the past suffering of black Americans. The author does not rely on the appeal to ethos, except in the most indirect way, such as by his implied inclusion in the group of those oppressed by racism and injustice in America. In that appeal, he relies heavily on the fact that his entire audience is already aware of his own recent trials and tribulations arising from his efforts to secure justice for….....