Rhetorical Appeals In I Have A Dream Speech

The speaker of the well known speech, ‘I Have a Dream’ was its very own author, Martin Luther King Jr. This speech was mainly about freedom and equality for African Americans. King emphasized on African American history, and how him and his people have been treated. The argument he used was that the African Americans have gone through enough and they deserve freedom and equality as much as white people. To support his argument he uses three appeals; emotional, ethical, and finally logical.

An emotional appeal is when the author uses some type of emotion in his writing, to persuade the reader into taking their side on the argument. In the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech for example, “ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” This piece of text, is an example of how King wanted peace between the two races. It means that he had a dream that one day the two races can but their history, skin color, and in general their differences behind them. This applies as emotional
Logical appeal is when the author uses facts and or statistics in their writing. An example of this would be, “ My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!.” This short piece of text explains the history of America, and how this country began fighting for our freedom for Great Britain, and how King will never stop fighting until there’s freedom for the African Americans. The last piece of that text, “ let freedom ring” speaks volumes. It shows how King will continue to fight for freedom, but the thing that makes the text so special, is that it’s the words of our forefathers. He didn’t use his own words, he used our forefathers’ to show logical appeal. The text is logical because of it’s background and its credible