Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King Speech

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The Last but not the Least The mid-20th century marked a key time period for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the leaders of the Civil Rights movement for African Americans. For years he toured the United States to bring awareness and action towards equality through numerous speeches and protests. On April 3rd, 1968, just one day before his assassination, King delivered his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” during a mass at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple Church of God in Memphis, Tennessee (American RadioWorks, para 1). Here, the Reverend is talking to its church members, who are mostly African Americans, following a march protesting the unfair wages for black sanitation workers. King uses his speech with his confident…show more content…
By calling the church members his own friends, King is placing himself at the same level of casual respect as companions amongst the audience would do. Because he is being seen as equal to everyone else, King is giving himself sense trustworthiness with the church members, which would let his motivational message that people should band together for equality spread with more ease than before. Also, King further mentions that even though there is a rainstorm approaching, he is “delighted” that the audience still came to hear his speech, and thus calls them “determined to go on anyhow” (1). Here, the Reverend is similarly connecting with the audience, this time praising their strength of mind and will, again giving the audience the perception that King is trustworthy and sincere leader, which makes them more willing to listen and consider King’s message. Including this, a large portion of the speech later on heavily focuses on the fact that people must still go on even during struggles, and this statement slightly foreshadows the importance of “going…show more content…
You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together” (5). By juxtaposing the thought of rising and falling, King shows that the essential essence of this statement is that staying together throughout the movement is what brings out the message that African Americans are trying to express, that equality is a necessity in society. He also briefly uses chiasmus to stress this once again when he says, “The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?”… The question is, “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” ” (5). With chiasmus, King is trying to persuade the audience that within unity, selflessness is what maintains the togetherness that exists in society, and without it, the purpose will fall apart along King finalizes his speech with “And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!” (7). The certainty and determination that King conveys throughout the play is ended with the exact level of confidence, which demonstrates how King truly moved his audience to
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