I Have A Dream Speech

Dr. King advocated for nonviolent responses to police brutality. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Michael Brown, and other acts of police brutality, what might Dr. King advise? What would he say in a speech on the subject?

In what ways is “I Have a Dream” a speech for a specific time and place, and in what ways is it universal? Does reading it more than a half century later change its meaning and if so, how?

Today, “I Have a Dream” is often reduced to that statement alone. Politicians and others quote the text, separating individual lines from the whole. In doing so, what messages from Dr. King are lost? Is anything gained by separating a few key phrases from the rest? Or does repeating the lines make them into platitudes?

What role do the specific references to locations play in the text?

Choose one image from the speech and analyze it. How does Martin Luther King, Jr. use it in his speech? What role does it play? What does it rhetorically contribute?

King directly addresses his audience throughout the speech, using inclusive pronouns such as “we.” Who is his audience for the speech? Did he intend for the speech to one day be read by people not present at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom? What in the speech indicates that?

King uses several metaphors in his speech. Choose one and analyze how it benefited this speech, as well as how the speech would change without it.

As an ordained minister, is stands to reason King would deliver speeches in the form of sermons, often making biblical allusions. Discuss the implications of using biblical references in a speech about freedom and equality.