VOA标准英语2010年-On His Birthday, Martin Luther King, J

Not just thousands of people on the Washington Mall but also millions of viewers on televisions watched King deliver his powerful Dream speech

 

Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty 1, we are free at last. These words, in ringing oratory 3, are perhaps the most enduring image we have of Martin Luther King, Jr. His finale to a massive civil-rights march on Washington, D.C., in 1963, was delivered before a quarter of a million people in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln's statue on the National Mall.  Forty-seven years later, as next Monday's American holiday that honors his birth approaches, the enduring power of what's remembered as the "I Have a Dream" speech still moves those who hear it.

The speech is ranked by many historians among the greatest orations 4, and most profound literature, in American history, alongside President Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" during the American Civil War, Franklin Roosevelt's "Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself" speech during the Great Depression, and John F. Kennedy's "Ask What You Can Do for Your Country" inaugural 5 address. Teachers and students everywhere dissect 6 its language, cadence 7, and rhetorical techniques.

Speaking from his heart

 

Library of Congress

Martin Luther King Jr. perfected his compelling oratory at the pulpit of the large Atlanta church of which he was pastor 9

Communications professor Margaret Zulick at Wake Forest University says that what makes this remarkable 10 is that, halfway 11 through, Mr. King completely abandoned his prepared text and never referred to it again.  "There's a spot where there's actually an incomplete sentence, which is very rare for King," she notes.  "And he misses a beat:  'I say to you today, my friends – so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow . . . '"

Professor Zulick says the "I have a dream" part of King's speech, follows immediately after.  "That was extemporaneous 12: 'I still have a dream,' to which the audience replies, enthusiastically, 'Yes!!!'"

King follows with more unscripted, dramatic repetitions of the now-legendary I have a dream phrase:  "I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice 13, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis 14 of freedom and justice."

"I have a dream," to which the audience reacts with more Yes's and applause.

Margaret Zulick at Wake Forest calls these repetitions riffs. Jazz musicians actually practice riffs, little improvisational 16 sections, she says.  "Then when they perform, part of the improvisation 15 is kind of mixing and matching these bits and pieces that are in their repertoire 17.  And that's exactly what he does."

Inspiring imagery

 

Carol M. Highsmith

King's words from the "I Have a Dream" speech appear on a wall of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, which is dedicated 18 to those who died in the struggle for equal rights

In the First Century A.D., the Roman orator 2 Longinus described what he called sublime 19 speechmaking. It not only perfectly 20 fits the occasion but also lifts the audience beyond the excitement of the moment and inspires lasting 21 change.  Today many scholars lift high the "I Have a Dream" speech as the classic example of sublime oratory.

John Adams, a visiting professor of rhetoric 8 at Hamilton College in New York state, says he's struck by King's lavish 22 use of metaphors 24 – unexpected words and ideas that create vivid images. 

"It perfectly and poetically 25 spoke 26 to the urgency of the moment, this transcendent hope for justice and freedom," he says.  "Take just the second paragraph, where he claims that the Emancipation 27 Proclamation [declaring slaves free during the U.S. Civil War] came as a 'great beacon 28 light of hope' to millions of people who had been 'seared in the flames of withering 29 injustice.'"

 

Carol M. Highsmith

An assassin's bullet felled Martin Luther King Jr., on this balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968

John Adams says Martin Luther King Jr. used many light-and-dark, night-and-day analogies in the speech, such as, "It came as a joyous 30 daybreak to end the long night of their captivity 31."

By setting out those contrasts, Professor Adams observes, you set an appetite for their resolution - the resolution of those tensions.

He cites other examples: "Manacles of segregation 32," "chains of discrimination,"  "people living on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Other geographical 33 allusions 34, about waters and mountains and valleys, abound 35 as well: "Let us not wallow in the valley of despair."

John Adams says the entire speech, with its dream theme, is a metaphor 23.  He says much of its power flowed from its delivery.  Others may perform the speech, but none can match King's looks and gestures, rhythm and heartfelt sincerity 36.  

Douglas DuBrin teaches English and history at the French International School outside Washington, D.C..  He uses the "I Have a Dream" speech in his classes and has prepared Internet lesson plans on it for other teachers.  DuBrin says the speech has musical qualities, including these rousing refrains:

    "Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania."

    "Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado." 

And later . . .

    "Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.  From every mountainside."

Masterful metaphors

 

The Gifted Photographer, Flickr Creative Commons

This is a model of a statue by Chinese sculptor 37 Lei Yixin, which will be the centerpiece of a new memorial to King on grounds of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Douglas DuBrin says King captured all four elements of a great speech, including eloquence 38.  "King had a masterful way of choosing references that would inspire the audience: the prolonged metaphors, the moments that are extended, even the pauses that he uses while the people are cheering, his ability to sort of take the moment and go beyond it."

The next essential element: passion. Every bit of the speech seems to be from his fiber 39, from his heart:

"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred 40." 

"King was a learned man, and his intellect was evident," Douglas DuBrin points out. "His references are ample to history, to the plight 41 of various peoples."

Douglas DuBrin says the fourth ingredient of great speechmaking, persuasiveness 42, must be evaluated after the fact.  He says the speech helped change the nation's racial landscape for the better.

Bridging the racial divide

mechanikat, Flickr Creative Commons

Thousands of cities across America renamed whole or portions of important streets in King's honor after his assassination 43 in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968

While Martin Luther King made ample use of his skills as a hypnotic Baptist preacher, with calls to the audience and their response, dramatic pauses, and lyrical references to biblical passages, Margaret Zulick at Wake Forest University says the "I Have a Dream" speech endures because it bridged the racial divide.  "He's trying to hold his own movement together, and then he's also trying to bring the movement into the mainstream 44 and convince white Americans that 'all we're asking for is our own share of the American dream.'  The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were promissory notes for freedom and equality, 'and now we're cashing it in.'"

       

Very simply put, it's the idea that black Americans are Americans, and that America is not going to be America until white Americans understand that the black American tradition is their tradition.

   

In King's words: "We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.  We refuse to believe that there are insufficient 45 funds in the great vaults 46 of opportunity of this nation."

As Martin Luther King Junior delivered his soaring "I Have a Dream" speech, Washington was half-deserted. hunkered down and anxious about what the tens of thousands of freedom marchers might do.  King's forceful, yet reasoned, speech, which be began to write just four days before it was delivered, softened 47 the nation's fear and anger and helped convince President Kennedy to begin the push for a landmark 48 civil-rights act that would end government-sponsored racial segregation in much of the land. 

President Kennedy would be assassinated 49 less than three months later.  And five years later, after delivering one of his last public utterances 50 about having been to the mountaintop, King, too, would be felled by an assassin's bullet.