Martin Luther King's Speech

The Speech Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech in 1965 is arguably the most famous and widely recognized speech in history. At the end of the civil war in 1865, the 13th amendment to the constitution came around. This ensured the freedom of roughly four million African Americans and rendered slavery an illegal practice in the United states. The federal government was now in full control of the situation. They passed numerous pieces of civil rights legislation and held their union troops in the south. Many southern states such as Mississippi resisted Washington’s policies. White supremacy groups such as the KKK were born. Widespread rioting ensued shortly after. The first ten years after the freedom of African Americans was known as the “Reconstruction”. They thought this period would result in prosperity and a sense of harmony between communities. However, in the mid 1870’s, federal troops departed the South. This would lead to a backwards step in progression. In the mid 1870’s, in many southern states, “Jim Crow” laws began to be passed by local governments and councils. These were strict laws segregating African Americans from the white community. Some laws forbade black men from marrying white women; others classified blacks not employed by whites subject to arrest. Others created voting qualifications that kept blacks from the polls. Fast-forward 90 years, and things had little changed. Dr. King had been preaching about dreams since the 1960’s when he first gave a speech to the NAACP called “The Negro and the American Dream”. This discussed the gap between the American Dream and reality. It claimed that the white supremacists had tarnished the dream. In addition, he claimed that the federal government’s lack of concern and falseness towards the situation. Dr. King’s reasoning behind is speech was very concise and his motivations were firm. He delivered his speech to end black isolation and try to bring the nation together as a whole. He "dreamed"