Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr., "I Have a Dream"

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia and earned a B.A. from Morehouse College in 1948, a B.D. from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951, and a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1955. King was a Baptist minister, the founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from its inception in 1957 until his death, and president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. King's best known books are Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958), The Measure of a Man (1959), Why We Can't Wait (1964), and WhereDo We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967). Among many awards and honors, King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the U.S.A.'s highest civilian honor—in 1977. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. "I Have a Dream," one of the most impassioned and eloquent pleas for civil rights ever spoken, was delivered on the Washington Mall in 1963 before a quarter of a million people and has been widely anthologized since.

CONTENT

1. To whom is King referring in the first line of his speech?
2. According to the author, what place do white people have in the civil rights struggle? Why do you think he points this out?
3. Who are the "architects of our republic"?
4. Explain the phrase the tranquilizing drugs of gradualism.
5. According to the author, what must happen if America is to become a great nation?
6. What parts of the country does King mention in paragraph nine? What is significant about them?
7. What new meaning is King suggesting the song "America/My Country, ‘Tis of Thee" should have? Which words in his quotation of the song have special significance in this regard?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Review your answer to Content question a.) above. How does King refer to the past President? How does he echo this President's words? How does he evoke the setting? How effective is this opening?
2. What is King's argument in this speech? Discuss the main points he proposes. What kinds of evidence does he use to back up his points?
3. What phrase is repeated in paragraph two? What does the author gain from this repetition? How can you relate it to his purpose? Where else in the speech do you find similar repetition?
4. Trace the metaphor King begins in paragraph three and continues in paragraph four. What things are being compared? What is the effect of this comparison? How does King build the comparison?
5. How does King link the two songs mentioned in his conclusion? What two songs are they? How effective do you find his conclusion? Explain.

1. What is your idea of the "American dream"? How committed are you to pursuing it? How can you relate your feelings to your reading here?
2. How did you picture King as you read his speech? (Many of the links below will lead to images of the man.) Have you seen a video recording of the speech? Will you pursue one now?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. To what extent has King's dream been realized in America since 1963? How much still needs to be done? How can it be done? Use your reading and your own observations in your writing about these issues.
2. Write a comparison/contrast essay using this speech and another selection from your textbook that originated as a speech. Be sure to explain the relevant timeframes, audiences, and subject matter.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Find King's speech in audio form and listen to it as you re-read it from your textbook. (It is widely available on the WWW in RealAudio and other formats.) What things did you notice about his language that you didn't notice upon your first reading? What accounts for this difference, do you think?

WEB CONNECTION

If you'd like to put King's work into a historical context, you will want to know something about the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. To get you started here's a good general page about the Civil Rights Movement from The Encyclopedia Britannica.

LINKS

Biographical

Here's a start page from Stanford University, which includes links to papers, biographies, speeches, articles, and more. It's a great place to begin your online research.

Here's a King tribute page from Life Magazine, where you can gain access to both images and covers. How many covers feature King? Spanning what decades? What does this suggest?

This page has information about the King National Historical Site, located in Atlanta. What might you learn there that other biographical material doesn't pay much attention to?

Bibliographical

Here is a link to an excerpt from "I Have a Dream" in RealAudio. Try to read along if you can. What differs in your reading and Dr. King's? What do you make of the emphasis he places on certain words? What makes him a great speaker?

Here's King's speech "The Purpose of Education." Write a summary of the speech. What is the purpose of education put forth? Do you agree?

Still hungry for more of this author's work? Here is a page with lots of links to King in RealAudio.

Cultural

Click here for some info about the HBO movie Boycott. This film deals with the Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. Did you see it when it played recently? If you didn't, will you now that you know more about it?

In a related bit of information here's a photo of Rosa Parks being fingerprinted for refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery. Describe the photo in as much detail as you can. Why is this such a famous photo?