The speech “I Have A Dream…” written by Rev. Martin Luther King was delivered at the “March of Washington” on August 28, 1963. The is a non-fiction speech about Kings dreams for America. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech is about King’s dream for the United States. King starts the speech by saying how happy he was at the turnout of people. He talks about how he was standing in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln which was symbolic because Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all slaves. King then goes on to talk about how one hundred years later between segregation and poverty the African American population is not free. At the end of the speech he talks about what needs to happen for the African American people to be free and ends the whole speech with the famous words “Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.” The purpose of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is to let the American public know what the African American people are going through and what needs to change for everyone to finally be free. Knowing the context helped me understand the speech a little bit better. The context helped me understand the speech because it let me put some of what King was saying into effect. For example, knowing about what the Emancipation Proclamation did, helped me understand what King was saying when he said that one hundred years later the Negros were still not free. Knowing the context also let me kind of put myself into the situation and really takes in to account what he was saying. Listening and watching the speech was way more effective than reading it. When you read the speech you don’t get the emotion that he has while giving it. When you listen to the speech you get to hear his strong emotions and all of his dramatic pauses that he has during the speech. When you are watching the speech you get you get to see King standing in the shadow of the Lincoln monument and it so much more symbolic than when you read it in the speech to yourself.