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I Have Been To ‘The Mountain Top’
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I Have Been To ‘The Mountain Top’
In his speech Martin Luther king junior states that it is time for the black people in America to make their impact felt and that they needed to be able to present these issues in the best manner possible so that the white man in his lack of interest and lack of approval that the blacks deserve the justice that he realizes that he is doing wrong. This speech is given to the black people and it urges them primarily to deviate from purchasing products from those companies which were against black people. Along with this primary issue presented there are other secondary issues presented to make his point stronger. At the end of the speech, martin Luther talks of a very important experience and finalizes his speech with the statement that he has seen a good future for the American black folk. Therefore he states that he was happy he did not sneeze but that night he was ready for anything because even though he was not to get into Canaan with them he had seen it and he knew its true. He uses several rhetorical devices like logos, pathos, and ethos to bring out his point.
Martin Luther king junior had been leading demonstrations and other kinds of events in the United States which were against the nature and the will of the whites to look down upon the black population. The whites had always segregated the black people and it was difficult for the black people to get justice even after so many efforts by different people to make sure that the people of color got what they needed. Therefore this meant that even though they were from the same country and they were supposed to live together as one this did not happen. The whites always viewed black people like those people who were not supposed to get the basic things of life. This can allude to the fact that the black population was a rising group and it has originated from the slaves after the abolition of slaves. Most of the whites were very much racist and they did not even the black people within their neighborhoods. In some other places like Alabama even the black people were not allowed to get into public transport and it was difficult for them (king, 03).
Therefore the history of slavery coupled with the extreme racism was very bad to the black population and it made them suffer so much. It was the aim of martin Luther king junior to end this kind of treatment to the black people and make sure that they were treated better and not as the whites wanted. Martin believed that all people were the same and that everyone was a child of God as everyone was created in an equal manner. Therefore the manner of treatment of the black people did not only hurt the black people but also hurt God and therefore in his speech, there is a lot of biblical allusions.
The audience of this speech can be said to be people who support black people’s liberation from discrimination. The fact that this speech was primarily addressed to the black people means that the same group of black people in America are the greatest audience and therefore this speech is supposed to make them stronger and able them to persevere through everything knowing at the end there will be a triumph.
Martin Luther King uses different ways to persuade and to give the people assurance that there is a better tomorrow. He stresses the issue of collectiveness and how they are powerful when they come together (king, 04). Through logos, he convinces the black population that when they withdraw from purchasing items from the shops of the whites then the white people will suffer and will be able to treat them better. This logic is very important for the black people to understand if they were to succeed in their desire and their activity of making sure that their voices were heard and that they got better in terms of their living standards (King, 06). He uses pathos whereby he addresses their emotions by telling them to be together. The conviction that when the black people come together they are going to achieve something big is very important for them to carry out with the mission they have (king, 02). His story of King is almost assassinated by a woman when he went to print his book makes his speech credible and therefore the people can trust him and this makes them even want to go against what the whites wanted and make sure there is a balance between them the whites and the blacks.
Therefore in conclusion this is a very strong and important speech that moved a lot of black people into peaceful demonstrations which to a big extent affected how they were treated by the whites.
Work cited
King, Martin Luther, Kris Shepard, and Clayborne Carson. A call to conscience: The landmark speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, JR. Little, Brown, 2001.
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