Darius Brown

ENGL282

10/9/2016

Hope and Action

In 1968 the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike was sparked due to the on job deaths of

two African American sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, from a malfunction of

one of the garbage trucks. No benefits or compensation was given to the families of the decease

from the company. This act of negligence and discrimination towards black employees was a

common behavior of the Sanitation company which lead to 1,300 African American men going

on strike. The strike created more racial tension in Memphis which lead to more violence.

Martin Luther King Jr, at this point was well established having given his famous, I have a

Dream speech alongside many others, and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, but people were

growing tired, they had tried to perform strikes in the past in 1966 but failed, so the appeal of

nonviolence lessening (Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike (1968)). In the mist of all the chaos

erupting in Memphis King saw this as an opportunity to bring a new hope to the movement, so

on April 3rd of that year King would go to the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee to give his

final speech before his assassination the next day (Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike (1968)).

This would be a different kind of speech from his past speeches though because he would

be speaking to an audience that were starting to move away from nonviolence. While trying to

encourage nonviolence King was also aiming to reestablished himself as a leader in his Poor

Peoples Campaign. The nonviolent protest would turn to violent which cause many to question

whether King was leading the movement (Lapin 2015). With King having to push harder for

nonviolence and reaffirm his position as leader, this would lead this speech to being one of
Kings more aggressive speeches. This speech would go on to be one his most powerful

speeches because of the power of his encouragement, to continue the fight for social justice even

in his absence.

Martin Luther King Jr was a great orator as we still listen to his speeches decades later.

So going deeper into his speeches and analyzing the various techniques he used within them can

enhance our understanding of those techniques and in turn make us a better orator as well.

Martin Luther King Jrs Ive been to the Mountaintop speech is one in which he effectively

utilizes various techniques of Delivery and Style to inspire hope and action within his audience.

One of Martin Luther King Jrs most memorable characteristics of his speeches is his

delivery. Delivery deals with how something is said and pace and tone are two techniques of

delivery that were key to Kings speeches (Brigham). In the beginning of the Mountaintop

speech he speaks at a pace that one would use in an intimate conversation or similar to a preacher

giving a sermon to a group, which is is fitting as King was also a preacher. By speaking at a

slower pace with slightly long breaks between sentences and ideas, King reels the audience into

this intimate conversation that he begins, then as each part progresses on the pace quickens.

Along with the increase in pace, his tone increases as well. The tone fluctuation he

displays matches up with his strongest ideas, metaphors, or references in the speech. When

listening to the audio of the speech, you can hear at these points in his speech the audiences

energy raises follows his with thunderous cheers and claps. King utilizes tone and pace

strategically with his story he tells in the beginning of his speech about going through various

times throughout history but wanting to remain in the current time. Slowly raising his voice and

pace when reaching the climax of the story where his point would be made, making it all the

more impactful. The point in of itself is not the only reason why the audience reacts to it so well,
its the fact that in the speech hes not speaking loudly so when he does start to increase his voice

the audience sees and hears the confidence in his voice and become confident and hopeful

themselves. This appeal to the peoples emotions through delivery is effective for King because

he guides the audiences emotions through the speech. Where at points where he wants them

think and see hope, he lowers his pace and tone, then when he wants the audience to feel the

need to continue their persistence in the pursuit for social and economic justice, he increases his

pace and voice.

While using delivery to guide the audiences emotion, King uses style to enhance the

point he is making through repetition and pronoun choice. In the speech there are three points in

the speech where King uses repetition and it is these three points that are some of the most

powerful parts of the whole speech. When he repeats the phrases, But I wouldnt stop there,

somewhere I read, and If I had sneezed he fluctuates his tone with reach repeat, while also

increasing the level of his tone as well. Resulting in each repeat the phrases get stronger and

have more impact. The important thing to note about repetition though is that not only does the

repeated phrase become emphasized, the argument being put forth in the area of the speech is

being reinforced as well. Like in the speech when King repeats the phrase somewhere I read,

the memorable and most impactful part is not the somewhere I read, its the hinting at the

various things the Constitution of the United States, King argues, is supposed to grant to all of its

citizens but is failing to do so. By combining repetition and the main point he made here, the

audience is reminded of the list of injustices they are experiencing and enduring in spite of the

Constitution. The reminder of their collective struggle only serves to motivate and push the

audience to keep fighting.

 A crucial part of Kings speech is his use of we in talking about the fight for justice.

By using we King appeals to the audience, he shows that hes not only in the fight with them

but hes fighting for them. This is how he solidifies that intimate atmosphere he created with his

delivery. Especially when he says, Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on

strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together. This language he uses brings

about hope because in numbers people have faith and believe they will be more effective if they

take action. In spite of the constant foreshadowing of his death he continues to use first person

plural pronouns, reassuring the audience to remain strong in their fight even when hes gone and

even when hes gone he is still with them.

To bring the speech to a close, King climaxes the speech with the highest level of tone

and pace, by instilling in the audience that hes seen the promise land and is not afraid of any

man. From the previous use of we the audience now puts themselves in Kings place when he

says hes not afraid. This is reinforced with the level of energy King is speaking to the audience

with. In the end, Martin Luther King Jrs strategic use of delivery and style in his Ive Been To

The Mountaintop speech, invokes hope and inspires his audience to action as seen on April 8th,

when the strike were able to come to a deal (Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike (1968)). By

using language to create an intimate atmosphere, pace and tone to manipulate energy, and

repetition to enhance main ideas, King effectively reels his audience in and leads them to a

correct course of action even if he is no longer with them. It is important to look back at

individuals who were able to inspire the masses to follow them in action because rhetoric is one

of the necessary tools a person needs to be able to speak to an audience and move them to their

own action. So learning how an individual uses certain rhetorical techniques in their own way,
in their context, can bring about new perspectives and understandings of these rhetorical devices

and how they could be used.

 Work Cited

Brigham, Gideon O. "Delivery." Delivery. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

<http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Canons/Style.htm>.

Lapin, Nathan Robert. "MARTIN LUTHER KING, JRS IVE BEEN TO THE

MOUNTAINTOP SPEECH: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF HIS EFFORTS TO

MOTIVATE HIS AUDIENCE AND TO RE-ESTABLISH HIS LEADERSHIP IN THE

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT." Thesis. The College of Wooster, n.d. Narrative in

Martin Luther King's I've Been to the Mountaintop: : Vol 58, No 1. 13 Mar. 2015. Web. 4

Oct. 2016. <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10417949209372884>.

"Martin Luther King, Jr. -- I've Been to the Mountaintop." American Rhetoric: Martin Luther

King, Jr. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2016.

Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike (1968). Martin Luther King Jr, and The Global Freedom

Struggle. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.

<http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_memphis_sanitati

on_workers_strike_1968/>