Martin Luther King Speech

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, which has come back marked “insufficient funds. ” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

I think the document was written to specifically address not just black Americans but to people of all faiths, colors and persuasions. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that they were all in need of liberation from the cruel customs and habits of the nation’s past, which held back every one of another, no matter what the circumstances were or us in one way. “ The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom”.

The document states that when The Emancipation Proclamation was signed, it was the opening of new hope to millions of Negro slaves and was to put an end to all slavery. About a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, the Negro was still not free. The life of the Negro was sadly crippled by segregation and discrimination. Whites cheated the Negros like absolute garbage and it lead to them living in poverty and in exile in his own land.

Where there any Negros backs in the time when segregation was a major conflict that had some advantages over other Negros? F. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech draws heavily on his theological education and his superior command of the art of rhetoric. King basically starts out by pointing out that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, which ended slavery in all the southern states and then from there he moves on to discuss the “check” of freedom.

He then states that the check has been returned due to insufficient funds which basically means that, “We the people refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. ” King final lines of his speech comes back to his introductory idea, that even though black people were freed of slavery in 1865 when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, they never actually have been free people.