I Have A Dream Speech By Martin Luther King Jr.

The introduction of the “I have A Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. immediately sets the stage for what was indeed “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” As shown in the book The Art of Public Speaking, by Stephen E. Lucas there are several qualities that the introduction of a speech should possess. These qualities are those of getting the attention and interest of your audience, reveling the topic itself, establishing credibility and goodwill, and finally previewing the body of the speech. These qualities relate directly to those in Mr. King’s speech. In the “I Have A Dream” speech Martin Luther Jr. gets both the attention of his audience and revels the topic of his speech through the changing of a line
Although the context of the speech is the most important the speech could have been drastically different if not for Mr. King’s immaculate speaking skills. The first topic to consider in the actual process of giving the speech is how Mr. King actually delivered the speech. Not only did he memorize his whole 16-minute speech but he also maintained a slow and steady pace the whole time, he articulated each and every word, and also moved his hands/body only when necessary. Whenever you watch the speech you might think that speaking in front of that many people might make you nervous but Mr. King had but not a single slip up. Another thing that Martin Luther King did exceptionally well was the alteration of his volume of his speech and the timing of his pauses to allow for the audience to applaud. He would increase his voice in times of repetition or parallelism to really drive home a certain point and then would immediately follow up with a verbal pause, perfectly timed with the reaction of the 250,000 plus members in front of the Lincoln