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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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On August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial 250,000 people gathered after the March on Washington. This is where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the nation with his “I Have a Dream” speech. He was speaking out about the injustices of segregation, and discrimination of African Americans that was happening in America. This speech is one of the most famous in America’s history to demonstrate the freedom our nation was built upon. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches and demonstrations would provoke movement in the hearts of the American people. He persuaded and inspired a nation into action with his words. With this speech, he masterfully uses ethos, pathos, logos, inductive, and deductive reasoning to convince all Americans that racism …show more content…

An example of deductive reasoning in this speech is in the fourth paragraph when he says, “This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’” (King, 1963, para. 4) In this argument, he emphasizes the fact that the Declaration of Independence states that black men are also men. Therefore, logically, they should be given the same rights that white men get. Another example of deductive reasoning is all throughout paragraph six when King is explaining that now is the time for change in the country (King, 1963, para. 6). He is logically going from the general picture of “Now is the time to make justice a reality,” (King, 1963, para. 6) to small conclusions on why this change needs to happen. Using this type of reasoning allows King to supply sufficient evidence to his claims and therefore add logos to his speech. In fact, the use of either inductive or deductive reasoning adds to the logos if a speech. Logos is a rhetorical device that is used to get the audience to believe the speaker because what the speaker is saying is logical and there is evidence to support the conclusion. An example of logos in this speech is when he states, “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’” (King, 1963, para. 4). This analogy is using logic as a form of reasoning. He reasoning is that everyone has a

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