Martin Luther King Jr. is still most often the first to come to mind when thinking of a civil rights activist, relying solely upon peaceful protest and civil disobedience such as Mahatma Gandhi. King is continually recognized as a powerful and moving writer and speaker. Two of his most prominent works including his letter from Birmingham jail as well as his "I Have a Dream" speech have remained examples of rhetorical strategy and argument for decades. Today, they are still studied and analyzed by high school students and even prominent writers. King began his revolutionary "I Have a Dream" speech by declaring that it would be one of the most inspiring speeches in America which clearly was true. In his opening he begins with "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation", an allusion to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address. He goes on to speak of the Emancipation Proclamation which was meant to free the slaves and bring about equality, however it was unsuccessful. Blacks still faced countless prejudices and even dealt with the emergence of the Jim Crow Laws. They virtually received alteration in their rights as American citizens. With this, King states that change needs to take place now and that the American people, no matter one's race, need to come together and be treated as equals. He expresses his feelings that blacks need to receive and have their rights acknowledged in order for peace to emerge in America. He says that things willl not be satisfied until prejudices are put aside and until the "white only" signs are put away and everyone is treated as equals. With this, he begins his famous "I Have a Dream" section of the speech using parallel structure to create an overwhelming amount of emotion and imagery, with the words that inspired a nation.
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