The Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have the Faith, to Let Freedom Ring… Martin Luther King Jr gave a speech 50 years ago that would remain in people’s hearts forever. His speech was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. after the March on Washington on August 28th, 1963. In his famous “I have dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr used several literary terms. “Now is the time to lift our nations from the quicksand’s of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” This particular sentence is a metaphor, and an antithesis. When Martin Luther King Jr said “quicksand’s of racial injustice”, I think he was referring to quicksand as an unstable territory, where his people are unhappy. When he said “solid rock of brotherhood”, first brotherhood is where all people are considered equal; they all get along no matter who they are. Solid rock obviously means a stable place to be. When he says “Now is the time to lift our nations from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood” he’s meaning it is time to lift his people from the deeply rooted racism up to the stable grounds of equality. “…whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification.” This line is a metaphor but also imagery as well. Interposition means that a state of the U.S. may oppose any federal action it believes conflicts with its power. Nullification means a U.S state refusing to enforce a federal law on Constitutional grounds. So by MLK saying “whose governor’s lips are dripping with the words of interposition and nullification”, I feel that he’s meaning one day the governor will not be inflicting these words on their people, but that they will have equality in everyone and the laws of civil rights will pass.
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight”. This line in his speech is a metaphor,