Paper 12; Module 34; E Text

UGC MHRD e Pathshala

Subject: English

Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad

Paper 05: “American Literature”

Paper Coordinator: Prof. Niladri Chatterjee, University of Kalyani

Module No 34: Martin Luther Jr.:

Content writer: Mr. Arif Ahammed, University of Hyderabad

Content Reviewer: Dr. Niladri Chatterjee, University of Kalyani

Language Editor: Prof. Sharmila Majumdar, University of Kalyani

About the module:

This module has the famous “I Have a Dream’ speech of Martin Luther King Jr. as its subject. It discusses in detail about the specific context out of which it emerged, the issues that had been talked about, the literary devices that had been used to attend certain ends and lastly about both immediate and long term impact it had upon the minds of the audience and on the course of the history of American civil right movement. Apart from this the module also offers a very short personal background of Martin Luther King Jr. and his contribution to the American civil right movement.

I HAVE A DREAM

About Matin Luther King Jr. :-

The most acclaimed African-American leader of his era, Martin Luther king Jr. came into this world on 15th January,1929 in - a rural area of Georgia, America as the middle child of Michael King Sr. And Alberta Williams King. He was named as Michael King Jr. initially but later following his father’s footsteps, who was a successful Baptist minister and had adopted the name Martin Luther King Sr to pay his homage to renowned German Protestant religious reformer Martin Luther, he too adopted the name Martin Luther King Jr. In between 1935 to 1944, he had attended David T. Howard Elementary school, Atlanta University Laboratory School and Booker T. Washington High School Morehouse College in Atlanta. As a student he was not highly motivated and his family’s close association with church and religious worshipping had not much influence upon his young mind. To be precise, he was quite sceptical about religion in general and about highly emotional spectacles of religious worship in particular. But a Bible class had ushered a radical change in his approach towards religion and he finally took up the career as a minister much to his father’s delight. At the very early stage of his career as a Baptist minister he undertook the journey of becoming a civil right activist after being shaken by witnessing the segregation of black African-American people in contemporary American Society. His awe-inspiring oratory skills, his unyielding determination to fight against all sort of injustice meted out to the black people on the basis of racial profiling, and his uncompromising courage coupled with exemplary leadership expertise, helped him to earn a place in the history of America as one of best orator, preacher and humanitarian civil right activist. Life of this exceptional leader was cut short with his assassination on 4th April,1968 in Memphis, Tennessee leaving millions of people over the entire globe in utter shock and grief.

His activities as a civil right activist:

Montgomery Bus Boycott: In 1955, Martin Luther King called for an all out boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama and had led the movement which was aimed and toppling down the unfair law that did not allow the black people to sit in the front seats of the buses and even forced them to surrender their seats to whites. Though King Jr. and his followers were jailed, the boycott did succeed in changing the horrendously racial law

allowing such segregation. This outright success of the civil right movement of that time garnered overwhelming public reaction and Martin Luther King Jr. marched into national scenario. time aboard the buses was changed. This was a straight-out success for the of the time, and gained national attention.

Birmingham mass demonstration: Martin Luther King Jr. was chief architect of one another peaceful mass demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 that was subjected to brutal repression where police dogs had been let loose and fire hoses had been used creating a worldwide controversy and securing strong media coverage subsequently. The mass demonstration in many communities that followed ultimately resulted in the crucial march attended by 2,50,000 people to Washington DC where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his immortal speech titled as “I have a dream”. The very fact that the Congress was forced to enact the Civil Rights Act in 1964, actually speaks in volume about the intensity and ultimate success of the the demonstration. King Jr. himself was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in the same year.

Memphis Sanitation Worker Strike: It is the strike that was started and carried out primarily by 1300 black sanitation workers of Memphis in 1968. The strike continued for 64 days and gradually shaped into one prominent civil right event. Martin Luther King Jr. came to express his full solidarity and spoke in the second march asking for abolishing discrimination, higher wages, and recognition of their union. The strike ultimately ended on 12th April, 1968 when the city of Memphis accepted their demands.

The chain of such intense demonstrations one after another were indeed highly successful and manifested in the forms of following path breaking legislation:

 Civil Rights Act of 1964 - banning discrimination in employment and public accommodations on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.

 Voting Rights Act of 1965 - prohibiting any sort of racial discrimination in voting and securing the right of the racial minorities to vote .

 Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 - allowing immigration from groups other than those from the traditional European countries.

 Fair Housing Act of 1968 - prohibiting discrimination pertaining to the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex.

Context and nature of the speech:

As discussed early, the famous speech speech had been delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1963 march on in Washington and in front of the Lincoln Memorial for Job and Freedom of the black Americans. 2,50,000 people participated in the march to make it as one of the most largest civil rights demonstrations in the history of America. While interacting with the reporter in 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. himself clarified that the march “will have a two fold purpose… to arouse the conscience of the nation on the economic plight of the Negro one hundred years after the emancipation Proclamation and to demand strong forthright civil right legislation” (Hansen 16). The announcement of this march generated two entirely opposite kind of reaction among the residents of Washington. While one group of people were worried about the possible outcome of unprecedented violence and sheer lawlessness because of their racially charged assumption that most of black Afro-American are uneducated and brutish, the other group was totally against such apprehension. Interestingly the then President F. Kennedy himself represented that other group and described the march as a “peaceful assembly calling for the redress of grievances” (Hansen 30). These two opposite viewpoints were two important aspects that decided the nature of King’s speech. He decided not to exclude the white people (as an ally in their fight) at the expanse of validating the fear of the former group. On the other hand he was little emotionally aggressive too both in choices of sentences and style of delivery for catalysing the much needed action for inflicting a positive change in the sphere of economic, social and political rights of the black Americans.

The process of the composition of the speech:

By 1963, King was already a praise worthy orator with almost 10 years of experience of public speaking as a religious preacher. But given the fact that this particular speech was in no way similar to his previously delivered religious sermons in terms of both audience and intensity, King (with his advisers) had to put considerable effort in drafting the speech. In addition to that the 5 minutes time slot (though he took around 17 minutes to deliver the speech) given to him also demanded much effort for condensing the highly important subject matter. It took four days of backbreaking intellectual labour for King’s team to prepare the final draft of the prepared and proposed speech which was submitted on the day of the historic march.

Departure from the proposed and submitted speech:

However it should also be noted that King followed the prepared draft only up to a certain point and after that he had totally abandoned the draft at his hand during the speech. The last 7 minutes of the speech was King’s spontaneous creation and in fact the famous refrain “I have a dream” appeared in that portion of the speech only, not in the prepared and submitted draft. In a 1963 interview with Donald Smith, King revealed the reason behind this departure. He said:

I started out reading the speech, and I read it down to a point, and just all of a sudden, I decided- the audience response was wonderful that day, you know- and all of a sudden this thing came to me that I have used- I’d used many times before, that thing about “I have a dream”- and I just felt that I wanted to use it here. I don’t know why. I hadn’t thought about it before the speech. (Hansen 95)

It is clear from King’s statement that the refrain ‘I have a Dream’ was one of the ‘set-pieces’ which are memorized passages, Bible verses, sayings etc. which are used by the preachers for delivering religious sermons and it can easily be said that the use of this particular ‘set-piece’ was the outcome of King’s urge to connect with the audience more acutely on the basis of their response. And it is more than evident that the purpose was served well.

Content analysis:

As per the content and issues addressed, the historic speech can be divided into seven parts or blocks.

Contrast between the promises of Emancipation Proclamation and the current situation of the Negro in America:

The very first part of the speech contains a fierce contrast. Alluding to the great Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Linclon 100 years back, King spoke about the promises of an American land for the Negro with accessible justice and full of freedom that the proclamation carried along with that. He described it as “ a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice” (line 6-8). But, he went on to say, that the material condition of the Negro people have not changed even after 100 years after the signing of the proclamation, still plagued by utter racial

discrimination and illusive economic prosperity and he described the condition of Afro-American black people as ‘shameful’. So in this starting part of the speech King pointed out the ray of hope that was ushered by the Proclamation 100 years back and the current situation of the Negro, hinting at the dark discrepancy that lies within.

Broken promises:

In the second part (line 19-37) King asserted the fact the great words, written down on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and proposing equality to all, have been severally violated. He, with the help of an wonderful extended metaphor, described the state of America as a defaulter who had given the ‘citizen of colour’ a bank check full of promises of equality in the form of the Constitution but it has come back with “insufficient fund” written on it. In the following paragraph, King asserted further that though Negro people have been subjected to manifold discrimination and pushed into a dismal situation, he and all his Negro brothers and sisters have a staunch belief that the mighty state and great Constitution of America in themselves are more than capable to deliver justice to them and with this belief they have assembled.

Reminding the urgency of actions that needs to be taken:

In this part of the speech we can sense an urgency in King’s tone while reminding his fellow man that it is not the time to take this rampant practice of gross injustice for granted. He emphasised again and again that the the time has come for rising up to gather and toil hard to materialize all the promises of democracy. Saying that this great demonstration is and should be just the beginning of a fully legitimate struggle for illusive justice and they can not afford to be satisfied or slowed down until their constitutional rights get secured and justice be made a reality to each and everyone in this country. Importantly King had also appealed to the audience that their struggle for justice should not be and can not be fuelled by ‘bitterness and hatred’ towards white people.

Invoking the need of non-violence and not building a sense of utter distrust towards white people:

In this particular and important juncture of his speech King reminded the audience that this noble struggle must be carried out ‘on the high plane of dignity and discipline’ and the temptation and provocation of taking recourse to physical violence must be resisted tooth and nail. He said that violent physical repression must be fought with the power of soul. King further stated that white people have also joined the march after they realized that the hope of a bright future and peaceful society will always remain bleak if they continue to exclude the Negro population. He pointed out that in this battle, which is going to be hard and long, the Negro people can’t be suspicious of all the white people and they can be satisfied only when all forms of injustice gets wiped out including the horrifying police brutality that has been unleashed upon the ‘citizen of colour’.

Narrating the lived experiences of Negro :

In this moving section of the speech (line 84-104) King described lived experiences of the Negro people. He spoke about how the Negro people are being denied lodging in motels of the highways and hotels of the city when they were coming to attend this demonstration, how the Negro are being confined to smaller ghetto, how their children are made to realize from very tender age that they are inferior to white children, how the Negro of Mississippi are being denied from voting, how the Negro of New York are being left without nothing to vote for, how they are being subjected to unjust arrest and inhuman brutality perpetuated by the police force. Referring to all these injustice meted out to them, King said that they don’t have the luxury to be satisfied until all these sorts of discriminations get erased for ever and ‘justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream’ and they all are the ‘veterans of creative suffering which will ultimately create the dearly desired society.

Injecting energy into the minds of the audience for toiling relentlessly for the cause of freedom and justice:

In this portion of the speech (line 105-111), King made an earnest appeal to the audience to keep working for the attainment of their goal to get justice and freedom even after returning back to their respective places from Washington where the march was taking place and also warned them from being captured by sheer pessimism and meaningless passivity.

Asserting his dream of emancipation and the potentials it carries within its womb:

In the last section of his speech (line 112-172), King spoke about his dream of a America where the vicious racism will be replaced by a compassionate brotherhood, where scorching heat of oppression will be transformed into soothing ‘oasis of freedom and justice’, where the colour of skin will cease to be important, where little black boys and girls will not feel intimidated to hold the hands of little white boys and girls, where freedom will ring from every nook and corner of the great country. King’s famous refrain ‘I Have a Dream’ appears in this section only and successfully transfused his own dream into the minds of million of people. He was successful in creating a strong faith in million minds that inspired them ‘to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together’ for making this dream a reality that only can make America a great nation.

Genre and nature of the language:

As far as the genre of this famous speech is concerned it can be said that the speech is persuasive in nature. King was fully conscious about his choice of language and instead of using highly sophisticated and ornamental language, he used simple language with which the audience could associate themselves with ease. He used simple yet powerful words to create vivid images and his experience of being a religious preacher helped him in achieving this end thereby making the speech a kind of political sermon. According to Brown and Yule

language is not used only for describing something. Language is used for doing things as well (quoted in Sipra 28). And it will not be an exaggeration to say that King used his language with perfection to do a wonderful thing- to inspire millions of people.

Literary Devices used in the speech:

King’s speech is marked significantly with various literary devices which are simple yet powerful enough to make the speech so appealing and effective that it still continues to inspire the entire league of oppressed class scattered throughout the world.

 Anaphora and parallelism: Anaphora, defined as the repetition of a word or phrase at the starting of successive sentences or clauses, has been used effectively by King in his speech. ‘Now its the time…’ (repeated six times), ‘One hundred years later…’ (repeated four times), ‘with this faith…’ (repeated three times), ‘I have a dream…’ (repeated eight times) are the examples of anaphora used by King. This trope helped him in great way to convey the main messages to the audience in an emphatic manner with a long lasting impact upon the mind of everyone.

 Contrast: King had used contrast to hammer home his own idea into the brain of the audience with utmost precision. The examples are as follow: ‘With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.’ (line 142-144) and ‘The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges’(line 57-59).

 Figurative speech and symbolism: King’s speech is also replete with many examples of figurative speech and symbolism which served as a powerful tool for him to represent the images of inequality and oppression. Phrases like "seared in the flames of withering injustice," "manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination," "whirlwinds of revolt," "oasis of freedom and justice," and "symphony of brotherhood," are the examples.

 Metaphor and Smile: Strong metaphors and similes are also used with utmost precision by King to describe the injustice meted out to the African-American. Following is an excellent example of extended metaphor:

‘America has given the Negro people a bad 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.’ (line 29-31)

‘So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice’(line 35-37) is another example of metaphorical speech which represents the acute nature of injustice delivered to Negro.

To meet the same end of describing the existing practice of discrimination and injustice, King had used similes like ‘justice rolls down like waters,’ ‘righteousness like a mighty stream,’ ‘walk together as sisters and brothers’.

 Biblical allusions: This historic speech also contains biblical allusion which have added up the power of the speech to reach and appeal to the audience in more enhanced manner. We can easily observe the allusion to Amos 5:24 and Isaiah 40:4 in the following lines:

‘…and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ (allusion to Amos 5:24) and ‘ …that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain will be made straight.’ (allusion to Isaiah 40:4).

King’s experience as a Christian preacher undoubtedly helped him to allude such types of phrases from Bible which in turn helped him to attract the audience’s attention and to make the speech all more powerful.

Significance of the speech:

The speech is considered to be one of the most powerful and influential speeches ever delivered in the history of mankind and rightly described as a important moment in the history of American civil right movement as it guided the movement towards its ultimate goal. With simple language, coated with powerful metaphor, similes, contrast, anaphora and figurative phrases, the speech is said to be a phenomenon that changed the fate and destiny of millions of black people and of an entire nation. The speech had pointed out painstakingly the types of utter discrimination and injustice to which the Negro were subjected at that time and

inspired millions of people to undertake what is known to be one of the greatest battles ever fought on the soil of earth- the battle for their justice and freedom. In fact the greatness of the speech can easily be perceived by the very fact that it still continues to be awe-inspiring and still continues to be the song of freedom and resistance for many oppressed and marginalized section of world population.

Summary of the module:

This module, after offering Martin Luther King’s personal details and his contribution to American civil right movement, has described in detail about the context of the speech how it was composed. In the content analysis part the problems, highlighted by King, have been pointed out and discussed. This particular section speaks about how King had pointed out the discrimination faced by the black Afro-American people on the basis of race strangling their just constitutional rights.This section also discusses about King’s dream of having a just and equal American society and how he urged the audiences to fight hard to make come true. King’s use of various literary devices like anaphora, similes and metaphor, figurative speech, contrast, allusions etc. to convey his message in an emphatic manner have also been discussed. At the end the significant role played by the speech in influencing many people and ushering a positive change, has also been discussed in short.

Work cited list Primary source: King, Martin L. I Have A Dream. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

Secondary Sources: Hansen, Drew D. The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech That Inspired a Nation. New York: Ecco, 2003. Print. Sipra, Muhammad A. “Crtical Discourse Analysis of Martin Luther King’s Speech in Socio-political Perspective.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 4.1(2013): 27-33. Web. 26 Mar. 2016.