PED 1-mlk anònim

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PED 1 Document: I HAVE A DREAM This document is the transcription of the speech that Martin Luther King addressed on August 28, 1963 to more than 200,000 people during the demonstration for "Jobs and Freedom" known as "March on Washington". It was or ganized in the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the march begun at the Washington Monument and the assembly point was in fr ont of the Lincoln Memorial wher e the speeches were delivered. Martin Luther King's s peech was the most famous part of this March and it is considered one of the most important symbols of the civil rights movement but, in fact, the idea of a 1963 March on Washi ngton was not or iginal ly Mart in Luther Ki ng's. It was Phil ip Randolph, a trade union activist and the senior statesman among African-American civil rights leaders who first suggested the idea. Randolph, indeed, had prepared a massive march to protest segregation in the armed forces and employment discrimination in the war industry in 1941. Eventually , President Roosevelt reacted in front of the threat of Black mobilization and the Fair Employment Act, which outlawed racial discrimination in the national defence ind ustry was passed and the march didn't take place. Desp ite civi l ri ghts movement of the 1950's and 1960's and the laws that federal government p assed agains t racial discrimination , segregation, particularly in the South, was a way of life: Blacks lived in isolated tenements because white landlords refused rent hous es to them; Blacks had litt le access to good jobs and usu ally work ed in service to white employers; Black children attended separate, inferior schools, Southern Blacks were denied the use of public rest-rooms and drinking foun tains marked with "F or Whites Only"; Blacks were relegated to the back of buses and trains, ...and worse, they were denied the right to participate in political process.

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PED 1Document: I HAVE A DREAM

This document is the transcription of the speech that Martin Luther King addressed onAugust 28, 1963 to more than 200,000 people during the demonstration for "Jobs andFreedom" known as "March on Washington". It was organized in the hundredth

anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the march begun at the WashingtonMonument and the assembly point was in front of the Lincoln Memorial where thespeeches were delivered.

Martin Luther King's speech was the most famous part of this March and it is consideredone of the most important symbols of the civil rights movement but, in fact, the idea of a1963 March on Washington was not originally Martin Luther King's. It was PhilipRandolph, a trade union activist and the senior statesman among African-American civilrights leaders who first suggested the idea. Randolph, indeed, had prepared a massivemarch to protest segregation in the armed forces and employment discrimination in thewar industry in 1941. Eventually, President Roosevelt reacted in front of the threat of Black

mobilization and the Fair Employment Act, which outlawed racial discrimination in thenational defence industry was passed and the march didn't take place.Despite civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's and the laws that federalgovernment passed against racial discrimination, segregation, particularly in the South,was a way of life: Blacks lived in isolated tenements because white landlords refused renthouses to them; Blacks had little access to good jobs and usually worked in service towhite employers; Black children attended separate, inferior schools, Southern Blacks weredenied the use of public rest-rooms and drinking fountains marked with "For Whites Only";Blacks were relegated to the back of buses and trains, ...and worse, they were denied theright to participate in political process.

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Martin experienced the South under Jim Crow1. He was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta,Georgia. His father was a Baptist minister and his mother a schoolteacher. He attendedsegregate public schools and entered Morehouse College in 1944 and spent three yearsat Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he became acquainted withMohandas Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence. He earned a bachelor of divinity degreein 1951. Then, in 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist

Church in Montgomery, A.L. He became a prominent leader in the civil African-Americancivil rights and was on the executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.His led the first great Negro non-violent demonstration in the United States, theMontgomery bus boycott in December 1955, which lasted 382 days. During the boycott,King was arrested, his home bombed and he was subjected to personal abuse.In the spring of 1963 Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian LeadershipConference (SCLC) begun the "Birmingham Campaign" to protest for the segregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants and to demand new job opportunities. TheCommissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor ordered a brutal response.Birmingham policemen and firemen used snarling German shepherds and high-powered

fire hoses against black marchers. Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed and hewrote his famous "Letter From Birmingham City Jail" which advocated civil disobedienceagainst unjust laws.

The international distribution of these violent scenes and the King's claim for civildisobedience resulted in a Kennedy administration response to the crisis. In June 11Kennedy announced on television a new civil rights bill to place before Congress as amoral issue, "old as the scriptures and clear as the American Constitution" In Kennedy'swords. The same day, SCLC leaders announced plans to demonstrate in Washington for new civil rights legislation and King, Randolph and Rustin (Randolph close aide) joinedforces to organize the march.On June 22nd, President Kennedy meets the civil rights leaders at the White Housepretending them to call off the march. These attendants were: A. Philip Randolph, JimFarmer (CORE2), Dr. King (SCLC), John Lewis (SNCC3), , Roy Wilkens (NAACP4) andWhitney Young (Urban League), who the press dubbed the "Big Six". The Big Six refusedto cancel the march and it's said that after the meeting Kennedy told his aides "Well, if wecan stop it, we'll run the damn thing".

1 "Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in the southern and

 border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960" Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University "What was

Jim Crow".2 CORE stands for "Congress of Racial Equality"

3 SNCC stands for "Student Nonviolent Coordinatig Committee

4 NAACP stands for "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

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The Kennedys felt the march as a political threat and though they publicly supported themarch, in fact they wanted to control and limit it. To reduce the number of Blacks protestingin the streets of Washington, they demanded that the day of the march should be aworking day and they required that all the marchers arrived in the morning and were gonefrom the city by dark. They feared to the presence of placards or banners critical of theadministration and only officially approved ones could be carried.

The Kennedy administration, the press and the white establishment were obsessed byfears of loots and violence on the streets of Washington. Some newspapers stated: "Thegeneral feeling is that the vandals are coming to sack Rome"5, "One small disturbancecould set off a wave of mob violence"6, "The deep concern of husbands and bosses for the safety of their wives and secretaries was expressed from one end of the city to theanother"7.A "State of Emergency" was declared: All liquor stores and bars closed, Federal employersdidn't have to go to the office, store owners removed merchandise to put in safer place,hospitals were prepared for mass riot casualties, baseball games were cancelled, etc.The entire DC police force was mobilized, 4,000 Army soldiers armed with rifles and

bayonets and 15,000 paratroopers were placed on alert.Eventually, the heavy police presence resulted not necessary because the March wascivilized and peaceful. A quarter of million people marched from the WashingtonMonument to the Lincoln Memorial in a civil protest that became a celebration. The eventinclude musical performances by Marian Anderson, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, MahaliaJackson, etc. and the speakers included all of the Big Six civil-rights leaders.

What they demanded? The March for Jobs and Freedom wanted to denounce theeconomic subordination of the American Negro and to achieve economic justice creatingmore jobs for all Americans. African-American civil-rights movement had demanded for somany times the end of segregation in education, housing, transportation, publicaccommodations, etc. but they thought that all of this civil rights were of limited extent andduration if economic racial inequality persisted.

5 Appered in Washington Daily News

6 Appered in Business Week 

7 Appeared in San Francisco Chronicle

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The speech

This document has two separate parts attending to how it was made. Although the Dr.King's address in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is famous as the "Ihave the dream" speech, in fact, the dream section is not part of his original speech.Martin Luther explained that when he neared to the end of his seven minutes of prepared

and written text, he "felt" that he wanted to use this sentence which he had used manytimes before to close and resume his address. King didn't need to write his speeches.King, as a preacher, addressed to his audience by heart.

He began making reference to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (very clever,as I've told before, they were in front of the Lincoln Memorial) and to the promises of theDeclaration of Independence and the Constitution and denounced that they remainedunfulfilled for Blacks one hundred years after 8. He compared metaphorically thosepromises to a "bad check" that the American government should make good right now.There are lots of metaphors in this text and frequently used to remark contrastingconcepts. For example, he contrasts images of "dark and desolate valley of segregation

with "sunlight path of racial justice". He contrasts the "joyous daybreak" to the "long nightof captivity"; "lonely island of poverty" vs "vast ocean of material prosperity"; and onemore, he compares "this sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent" vs "aninvigorating autumn of freedom and equality".

To emphasize the urgency of a political solution to these injustices, he repeated the phrase"Now is the time..." several times. This repetition of sentences or words is a rhetoricaldevice called anaphora that King uses again and again in this text. Examples of keyexpressions repeated are: "One hundred years later", "Now is the time...", "We must...","We can never be satisfied...", "Go back to...", or the most famous "I have a dream". Andexamples of the key words repeated are: freedom (twenty times!), we/our/you,nation/America/American, justice/injustice, etc. That focus our attention in the main idea of the speech: Black people are not free; the segregation has existed despite the Constitutionand the emancipation act and American people (black and whites) have the moral duty toapply justice right Now.

King addressed alone to the massive audience that day, but he quoted famous andcredible people like Lincoln (as I said above) and made allusions to Biblical passages inorder to improve his credibility like in the sentences "It came as a joyous daybreak to endthe long night of captivity", "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinkingfrom the cup of bitterness and hatred"

Another oratorical device used for King in the speech to be close to his audience and toillustrate his arguments is the use of geographic references. In this speech, the wordMississippi is mentioned in four occasions and also are mentioned Alabama, Georgia, NewYork, Pennsylvania, etc. There are also other geographic references more generic: "slumsand ghettos of our northern cities", "the South", "From every mountainside"... In conclusion, Martin Luther King Jr. was a remarkable preacher, a magician of theoratorical art and to enjoy completely this speech and to feel the strongest emotions, Irecommend everybody not only to read, but to listen it9.

8 King uses the old expression "five score years ago"."Score" comes from the Old Norse (extinct Germanic languageof medieval Scandinavia and Iceland from about to 700 to 1350) "skor" meaning a notch or tally on a stick used for 

counting. Often people counted in 20s for large numbers (ex sheep). Then "score" mean 20.

9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk  

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SOURCES CONSULTED

http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2003/August/20050711151842pssnikwad0.3846247.html 

"Martin Luther King Jr.: The man, The March, The Dream", David J. Garrow, August 2003 issue of 

American History Magazine

Speech Analysis: I have a Dream – Martin Luther King Jr. By Andrew Dlugan, Jan 18th, 2009, Six

Minutes http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-analysis-dream-martin-luther-king/ 

http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow , Ferris State University, Jim Crow, Museum of racist memorabilia

http://www.crmvet.org/ Civil Rights Movement Veterans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1955%E2%80%931968)