Mlk Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister, activist and more importantly, a leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement hailing from Albany, Georgia. The audience consisted of mostly African American activists and supporters but also white elected officials and government officials as well as average white citizens. The purpose of King’s speech was to convey the difficult life African Americans have been faced with ever since Americans forcibly brought African natives to become slaves and work for the white men. King is speech, he effectively succeeded in motivating and aspiring the nation to ponder giving equal rights to their fellow African American citizens. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. upon expressing his happiness for “what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation”, King begins with a brief history of how his people have come to America to work as slaves to face a future of isolation, impoverishment, discrimination and segregation for the generations to come. He then uses an example of coming “to our nation's capital to cash a check.” The check represented the promise the founding fathers of the American nation had documented and made a law for every person who is guaranteed equality. Therefore, those people present at his speech were there to cash that check. Much like someone writing out a check to someone, the beholder of the check are actually promising them that the future beholder does have the money which makes the check valid. Following that example, King verges on a small threat that if there will be no change and “if the nation returns to business as usual” then “the whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”

King then turns to his brethren African Americans and informs them that while fighting for their equality, they must not be convicted on wrongful deeds, to abstain “from