Martin Luther King, Jr.'s thesis in his "I Have a Dream" speech is that, even 100 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the African American "still is not free." To support his thesis, King points to such injustices as segregation, discrimination, and poverty.King uses many references to segregation to illustrate the harshness of its reality. For example, he points out that weary African-American travelers are denied admittance to motels and...
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s thesis in his "I Have a Dream" speech is that, even 100 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the African American "still is not free." To support his thesis, King points to such injustices as segregation, discrimination, and poverty.
King uses many references to segregation to illustrate the harshness of its reality. For example, he points out that weary African-American travelers are denied admittance to motels and hotels. He further points out that African American children must face signs that say "For Whites Only," signs that rob them of fully wanting to express themselves as African Americans and of their self-respect.
To illustrate the harsh reality of poverty, King points out that most African Americans are living in slums and ghettos and can only move "from a smaller ghetto to a larger one."
To illustrate the harsh realities of discrimination, King describes the discrimination his children face, pleading for it to end.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Additionally, King illustrates his points by referencing racist Alabama Governor George Wallace and his attempts to bar African-American students from enrolling in schools, nine years after the decision of Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation in schools unconstitutional.
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