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VARENDRA UNIVERSITY
Promise of Quality and Perfection

ENGL: 104

Assignment on Mid-term Examination

Submitted By, Submitted To,

Name: Md. Shariful Islam

ID : 201011145 Nikhate Jannat Binte Zinnah

Section: D Lecturer

Semester : 3rd Department of English

Batch : 23rd Varendra University, Rajshahi.

Course Title: Introduction of Literature: Non Fiction

Course Code : ENGL- 104
Department Of English
Varendra University, Rajshahi.
The way Martin Luther King portrayed the deprivation of black people and his
dreams in the speech “I Have a Dream”

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pioneer in the implementation of the rights of black people. His
great initiative awakened the Black Peoples to the possibility of regaining their Jobs, freedom
and rights in a new way. His initiatives for the realization of rights through peaceful movement
were quite commendable. In August 1963, at the March on Washington, Dr. King gave his
famous speech sharing his dream of a society. He gave the speech at the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. One goal of the March on Washington was to encourage the passage of the
Civil Rights Act.

In his speech, Martin Luther King beautifully portrays deprivation of the black people. At first he
talks about Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation one hundred years before the
march. He says that proclamation “a joyous daybreak to end the long night of the black
people’s captivity. Then he talks about the problems faced by African Americans one by one in
1963. He says that that one hundred years later, the black people still are not free. They are
crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. He also discusses
about the poverty of black Americans as one hundred years later the Negro lives on a lonely
island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. King talks about when the
founders of the nation wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. He says
they were writing a promissory note every American, that all men were guaranteed the
unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that this included black men
as well as white. He states that America defaulted on that check where black citizens are
concerned by denying them those rights. “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a
check which has come back marked insufficient funds.” In his speech, he beautifully highlighted
the deprivation of black people.

At the end of his speech Martin Luther king has expressed his dream. He thinks his dream deeply rooted
in the American dream. He says he has a dream that all people would be judged on who each person is
as a person and not on the color of that person’s skin. He dreams the government would follow the
ideas in the Declaration of Independence that all people are created equal. Dr. King has been fighting
the effects of segregation. His dream will come one day when there will be no discrimination between
people. Black people in every region of America will be able to move freely. No one will be deprived
of hotel and motel facilities just for skin color and police will not harass them. He dreams that one
day America will realize that every human being has the right to vote. He dreams that their children
will never accept racism for a job or work. He dreams that one day America will strive to protect their
independence and sovereignty and to establish the rights of every one of their citizens.

Martin Luther King firmly believes that one day at dawn the morning sun will rise. On that day, a
sense of brotherhood will develop in every person in America. Everyone will happily work shoulder to
shoulder for the development of America. And on that day, America will achieve real independence.