The part that struck me the most was around the 11:38 when he said "Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valleyof despair. I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream". King is saying that when you go back the South (the places where there is still deeply rooted racism and hatred) don't think that nothing has changed. That you still will be treated as badly as you were treated before. No, Martin Luther King Jr. says that they should keep on hoping and dreaming for a time when racism and prejudice where cease to exist. To really not give up at all. Also, that in the face of hardships Martin Luther King Jr. still believes in the American dream. The American dream is where all African American are treated equally. That skin color doesn't matter, but a person actions and character do. Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea of the American dream is a different way a person views the American dream. As I always though the American Dream involved find more job opportunities, financial stability, and the right to education.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
I Have a Dream
Today, for my American Lit. class I was required to write a poem about the American dream. I started thinking about Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. I will admit though I know was it is essentially I had never heard the speech in its entirety. I decide to watch it today. Below is a video of the speech.
The part that struck me the most was around the 11:38 when he said "Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valleyof despair. I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream". King is saying that when you go back the South (the places where there is still deeply rooted racism and hatred) don't think that nothing has changed. That you still will be treated as badly as you were treated before. No, Martin Luther King Jr. says that they should keep on hoping and dreaming for a time when racism and prejudice where cease to exist. To really not give up at all. Also, that in the face of hardships Martin Luther King Jr. still believes in the American dream. The American dream is where all African American are treated equally. That skin color doesn't matter, but a person actions and character do. Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea of the American dream is a different way a person views the American dream. As I always though the American Dream involved find more job opportunities, financial stability, and the right to education.
The part that struck me the most was around the 11:38 when he said "Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valleyof despair. I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream". King is saying that when you go back the South (the places where there is still deeply rooted racism and hatred) don't think that nothing has changed. That you still will be treated as badly as you were treated before. No, Martin Luther King Jr. says that they should keep on hoping and dreaming for a time when racism and prejudice where cease to exist. To really not give up at all. Also, that in the face of hardships Martin Luther King Jr. still believes in the American dream. The American dream is where all African American are treated equally. That skin color doesn't matter, but a person actions and character do. Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea of the American dream is a different way a person views the American dream. As I always though the American Dream involved find more job opportunities, financial stability, and the right to education.
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I disagree that MLK has a different idea of the American Dream (AD) than you or i do. I think that when you say that the idea of "all African American are treated equally" and your the idea of "more job opportunities, financial stability, and the right to education" are not aligned you are glossing over a very important connection between those two points. It is true that MLK desired for black people to be treated as the equals of their white counterparts. However, it is exactly those aspects you include in your idea of the AD that represent that equality. MLK knew that more job opportunity for blacks, financial stability and a right to education were the embodiments of freedom and equality in america; Embodiments that for so long had been denied to the black people, hispanic people and asian people of this nation. So when in his speech MLK states that he has "a dream deeply rooted in the American dream" he is saying that he dreams of one day achieving more job opportunities for blacks, financial stability for blacks and the right to an education for blacks. Through knowledge comes power, and that power, to be the deciders of their own destinies, is what MLK dreamed for his struggling people in a country so full of prosperity.
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