[Music] I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech is arguably the most important and most well-known speech of the 20th century it's 1667 words and 17 minutes long absolutely riddled with big difficult terms and full of rhetorical devices that are intentional and practiced the speech as everyone knows was delivered at the March on Washington in 1963 and voiced the economic political and moral message of civil rights to a quarter
million people in front of the Lincoln Memorial onto those people and the billions who have seen or heard it since King's words imprinted an image of what black Americans were fighting for and why fully 100 Years After Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation 5 score years ago a great American in whose symbolic Shadow We Stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation the very first line of the speech is already doing so much the first four words are an illusion to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address an instantly recognizable piece of American rhetoric that in one Fell
Swoop links America's founding which Lincoln spoke spoke of and the Civil War when he spoke with the fight for civil rights throughout the speech King takes great pains to make links like this it's important for him to frame civil rights as a chapter in the larger American mythology so that those who identify with that mythology might incorporate this struggle into that story The unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness but there's even more to see in this first line one of the things that makes King's words so memorable is their musicality here
he uses alliteration five words starting with the letter s that draw you along the sentence like a tune that's catchy alliteration helps a phrase stick in the mind and King returns to it again and again in this speech dark and desolate Valley this sweltering Summer of the negro's legitimate discontent The Marvelous new militancy out of great trials and tribulation dignity and discipline in a sense we've come to our nation's capital to C a check this isn't the only rhythmically aware or musical feature of I have a dream there's another rhetorical device called anafa which king
uses even more than alliteration anafa is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences something that in writing would be redundant but in speech is an effective tool for emphasis and I have a dream Martin Luther King uses an AFA as an emphasizing tool but also as an organizing device listen to how these phrases sketch the larger ideas of the speech almost like an outline but 100 years later 100 years later 100 years later 100 years later but we refuse to believe we refuse to believe now is the time now
is the time now is the time now is the time we can never be satisfied we can never be satisfied we cannot be satisfied we can never be satisfied I have a dream I have a dream I have a dream I have a dream I have a dream today Let Freedom Ring Let Freedom Ring let fre Let Freedom Let Freedom R the speech goes from the past to the present to the future of civil rights and is threaded with a refusal to settle for anything other than the ideal of freedom and equality I think this
is a key to Martin Luther King's rhetorical genius drawing from his gospel Roots he not only uses alliteration and anfra even illusion for dramatic effect but also to help the audience grasp the structure and remember the Nuance of his message King knows that for example you may not know this line from Shakespeare now is the winter of our discontent made glorious Summer by this son of York but the phrase will ring familiar this sweltering Summer of the negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until that is an invigorating Autumn of freedom and equality King shifts the
seasons of course because for those who live in the American South Autumn is more relieving than summer know your audience and sticking with this paragra for just a moment notice that this sentence of Shakespearean poetry is couched in a point about urgency and not settling a king is an all flowery language he draws that image of paradise then follows it with a sentence that contains three easy to understand cliches those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business
as usual this mixing of plain and ornate language is I think a micro cm of what occurs in the entire speech after alluding to the Gettysburg address in the Declaration of Independence King compares the promises of those documents to a bad check a check which has come back Mark insufficient fun after invoking the plain realities of police brutality four White's only signs and voter suppression he paraphrases the Bible we will not be satisfied until Justice rolls down like Waters and righteousness like a mighty stream the first half of the speech describes en larg part the
issue at hand what is to be done and demanded what is to be avoided and he tells those who have suffered to hold fast and believe while the final part which was famously improvised by King on the spot Rises into the heights of dreams and ideals 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 and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and All Flesh shall see it together in
my video analyzing Donald Trump's speech I talked about how he was able to connect with people by using simple language it's a good general rule for public speaking when you're addressing a large diverse audience the most important part of rhetoric is being understood Trump does this by keeping his words basic and emotional and it works but I think Martin Luther King offers a counter example of public speaking one that's more complex and layered in language and structure but still just as easily understandable as anything that current politicians or speakers say and I have a dream
the simple language contextualizes and grounds the poetic and the poetic elevates and animates the simple that's why it echoes across time and will Echo for decades and ages to come something vital and Alive we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children black men and white men Jews and Gentiles Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and singing the words of the old Negro spiritual free at last free at last thank God Almighty we free [Applause] [Music] at hey everybody thanks for watching and thank you to the Great
Courses Plus for sponsoring this episode if you love learning for fun which I do the Great Courses plus is that subscription on demand video learning service it's got 7,000 online lecture series from some great ivy league and other professors um something that really sort of meshes with what I was just talking about as a great course by John mcorder from Colombia about the usage of the English language the the myths about it um and it goes into some of these things about oratory that I obviously am totally fascinated by because I think it sort of
organizes the world anyway if you uh go to the Great Courses plus.com nerdwriter you can get 30-day free trial you use the offer code nerd writer I think it's $4.99 after that it's a really cool service if you just like to learn things which I do um thank you guys so much for watching I will see all of you not next Wednesday but I'll be in Boston for nerdcon nerd fighteria put the link in the description below if you're in Boston come say hi
