Martin Luther King Jr. gave one of the most memorable and most powerful speeches in History. The speech was titled “I Have a Dream”, and was recited in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. No one could have imagined that forty-eight years later, we as Americans would be referring back to this speech as an important breakthrough in History. Martin Luther King Jr. uses anaphora and allusions to help portray his idea of racial equality for everyone, and a better future for America.
Martin Luther King Jr. used the rhetoric device called anaphora to emphasize his theme of equality. There are several examples in this speech that we could use as examples. One example is the line or phrase, “And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let Freedom ring from the mighty mountain of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania” (324). King emphasized the words “let freedom ring” over and over again because he wants us to remember that certain phrase. He used these words to state that freedom should be from coast to coast for every person, and not just found in some states. He says “let freedom ring” and uses different geographic areas that are spread apart throughout the United States. King exclaims that freedom should be everywhere in the United States of America, and is an essential part of a better future for America. King wanted everyone to be treated equal, no matter what race you were or how you looked.
There is another example that can be used as an anaphora. “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” (322).