Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech is one of the most prominent events during the Civil Rights Movement in on August 28th 1963, this speech contained power symbolic language that figuratively echoed throughout history and was heard across the nation. Whether if the location was intentional or not the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. served as a natural visual aid for King's speech by using 16th president Lincoln as a reference to the Emancipation Proclamation which abolished slavery on January 1st 1863, one hundred years before King's speech and stated that African-Americans are still not free.
Had King chosen to make his speech in a different location his above statement would more than likely had less momentum for his speech, but he chose the capital of America in order to be heard throughout the nation and to attract attention to the capital's activity. This speech served as a major tool for the Civil Rights Movement, had this speech never been created then Civil Rights Movement would have more than likely failed to change America.
Fortunately this speech did help by serving as a major tool of momentum of the Civil Rights Movement to change America. King also used symbolic yet reality instilled language in his speech such as, "the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity", which outlined the harsh yet actual reality of the African-American population during that time. He also stated the injustices that African-Americans were dubbed upon by America and King said, "America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."
This speech has made it's mark in American History and shall remain so throughout the time of the world, this speech shall be remembered as the speech that changed America.
I agree that "this speech served as a major tool for the Civil Rights Movement", and that this was a special and critical moment for all of America. The Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s have served as a model for all social and political struggles in America since then, and the nation views Civil Rights issues in a completely different way since then. However, I do not agree that "this speech never been created then Civil Rights Movement would have more than likely failed to change America." This was the rift between the ideology of Dr. King and that of Malcolm X. We should be fortunate that King's path of non-violent protest and resistance was effective, because if it was not, America would have no alternative but to have to deal with Malcolm's path of “By Any Means Necessary”, and that would have been much harder for all Americans. But America was long overdue for a change, and some kind of upgrade in legal justice for Black Americans would have been reached one way or another. Keep in mind that we are still severely over-incarcerated and under-educated, even with a Black president in so-called post-racial America in 2011. Just my thoughts…
ReplyDeleteGood luck in this course, and in all that you do…
Mike