Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King's Speech

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Throughout history America has been the destination were immigrants came to start a better life for themselves. Even though America was built on the principles that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights. African Americans have always been on the short end of the stick for as long as anyone can remember. Since the 17th century, they have been discriminated against, treated like garbage and killed. If it wasn't for Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation proclamation African Americans would still be working as slaves and be treated unfairly. Even though they were free from being slaves, they still faced trials and tribulations for many years to come. Then came Martin Luther King Jr, who pushed for equality…show more content…
. He points out that even though the Negro is free from slavery, they are still slaves “crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (687). Then begins to talk about how “America has given the Negro people a bad check” the check symbolizes the rights that they have in this nation, where the check “has come back marked 'insufficient fund'”, meaning that they have yet to experience what they are guaranteed (688). Urges people to not “engage in the luxury of cooling off” but to act and take action when he says “ Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children” (687). Threatens that there will be a revolution that “will lift the nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood” (687). He continues to unite his audience, consisting of both Negro and White when he said that “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 to come to realize that their destiny is tied with our destiny.” he says this because even though the White's have treated the Negro's badly they need to be together, because only when they are together will they be able to overturn the shackles that is racism and segregation (687). Where they will all be able to live in a world where their children aren't “stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating 'For Whites Only'”
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