Blacks had a period in history when they were utterly discriminated against, subjected to prejudice, and treated horribly. Topics included are the origins of Afrikaners, the link between religion and white supremacy, the system of apartheid, Nelson Mandela’s role, the anti-segregation movement in the United States, and black voting rights in the United States. This documentary covers a couple of topics, which will be summarized in this essay. King’s speech, especially in passages like this one, strikes a careful balance between a rousing call to action and an intimate portrait of what America can look like if people all across the country commit themselves to justice.This documentary shows that Blacks faced terrible discrimination in the United States and South Africa. When he pivots back to the contrasting language of sweltering heat and redemptive coolness at the end of this passage, he’s engaging the audience’s senses as well as their feelings. He’s trying to inspire the audience to dream along with him by arousing sentimental images of brotherhood and forgiveness. When King uses emotional language in this passage, he’s leaning on the rhetorical device of pathos-an appeal to the audience’s feelings. In other words, he doesn’t stop at a baseline of begrudging equality-he wants people to genuinely love and respect one another and overcome their differences. Now, his dream isn’t just rooted in the promises America has already laid out itself: it’s rooted in all Americans coming together in brotherhood and freedom. In this passage, King expands the bounds of his dream for America. Rather than giving into bitterness and violence, King suggests that his listeners transform their rage into nonviolent action. By subtly invoking that speech with the term “creative protest,” King reinforces a throughline of his thought: that the movement will succeed only as long as activists meet violence with creativity and love. Instead, King wants his listeners to feel validated in their belief that the time for radical change is now, and he wants them to channel that belief into “creative protest.” In a 1960 speech, King dubbed the tactic of staging sit-ins at segregated lunch counters “creative protest.” He was impressed that the young people leading the sit-ins came up with a protest idea that was peaceful, symbolically powerful, and clear in its message: that Black Americans would not tolerate segregation. But he doesn’t want that fiery energy to translate into violence or chaos. King knows that by invoking the language of scorching heat and urging a foundation-shifting revolution, he’s firing people up. Here, the epigraph is the words of Lincoln, who is renowned and praised for his role in ending slavery, although the speech will go on to examine all the work left to be done to create true equality. King telegraphs this to his audience by essentially quoting the opening lines of Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, which began: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Looking at King’s speech through the lens of sermon structure (he was a preacher, after all), Lincoln’s words could be viewed as the sermon’s epigraph (typically a Bible verse that the sermon goes on to analyze). So not only were he and the protestors at the March on Washington standing literally in Lincoln’s shadow-they were also standing metaphorically in the shadow of the actions he took to end slavery. King delivered his address from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks out on the National Mall and the Washington Monument.
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