Littlejohn 1

Rachel Littlejohn

Jana Gurley

ENG 111-403

10 December 2019

Fighting for Rights as Americans

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” and Susan B. Anthony’s address are amazing

speeches that had a great impact on the country. They are similar yet different in how they

approach their audiences and how they use language, tone, and rhetoric to better their speeches.

The two speeches, though about different issues, are similar in their theme of the hope for

freedom and equality of race and gender for this country. Sojourner Truth said about the issues,

“I feel that I have the right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men

getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights,

and colored women not theirs, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be

just as bad as it was before”("Black Women & the Suffrage Movement:1848-1923"). This shows

the connection and similarities of the themes and reasons for the speeches. This theme is very

important and influences all of what is said in their speeches.

King’s and Anthony’s speeches both use rhetoric and positive and negative connotations to get

their point to the audience. King uses these positive and negative connotations when he says, “I

have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of

injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom

and justice”(King). Alike Anthony uses these overtones when saying, “And we formed it, not to

give the blessings or liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our

posterity, but to the whole people-women as well as men”(Anthony). Both speakers use negative

and positive connotations to show the right ideas from the wrong ideas. Throughout both

speeches, they use all types of rhetoric to give points on their topics. The speaker’s use of

rhetoric is what makes the speeches truly good and moving.

One of the differences between Anthony and King’s speeches is how they use rhetoric.

Though both King and Anthony use pathos, ethos, and logos they use them differently and use

some more than others. King uses pathos the most to show his hopes for the future and to appeal

to the emotions of the audience. An example of this is when King says, “I have a dream that one

day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the

heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that

little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their

skin but by the content of their character.” Would a person really want their children to be judged

by the pigmentation of their skin and not the content of their character?” That is the question

appealing to the audiences’ natural desire for freedom. Differently, Anthony uses logos most of

all to prove and to reason for making it legal for women to vote. “Here is no shadow of

government authority over rights, nor exclusion of any from their full and equal enjoyment. Here

is pronounced the right of all men, and ‘consequently,’ as the Quaker preacher said, ‘of all
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women,’ to a voice in the government. And here, in this very first paragraph of the declaration, is

the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for, how can ‘the consent of the governed’ be

given, if the right to vote be denied (Anthony).” In this excerpt, it shows Anthony’s use of logos.

The speaker is using quotes from the declaration of independence to show people the reasons

that women should be able to vote. Though it might not seem significant that the speakers use

rhetoric differently, it greatly changes the tone of their speeches

There is a big difference in the tones of the two speeches because of the way rhetoric is

used and because of what the speeches are intended for. When listening to the two speeches one

would be able to tell the different tones. King has a hopeful tone that seems to be encouraging

people and showing people what the future should be like, but Anthony has a more defensive

tone to an audience that probably does not agree with her point of view. This is important

because if Anthony was to use the type of tone that King did, it would not make the impact that it

does on her audience. If King was to use the tone Anthony did, it would not be as encouraging as

it is and they would have not accomplished their purposes for the paper.

Neither speaker was able to see their dreams, written about in their speeches, fulfilled;

that does not mean they were not effective. Now women can vote and equality for all is still

progressing. One cannot say that one is more successful than the other because there still is not

complete equality of gender and race. King is successful in encouraging people and helping

people take steps towards equality in America. Anthony is also successful. She helped get

women the right to vote and take steps towards equality for women.

Both Anthony’s address and King’s “I have a dream” speech are moving speeches

intentionally written for their audiences and for the furtherance of the country. Both speeches
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have changed America for the better and helped and are helping equality become more and more

prevalent in the country.

Works Cited

“Black Women & the Suffrage Movement: 1848-1923."

[Link]/mlk/posters/[Link]#.

Doug Linder - [Link]

Jamal, QurratUlAin N. , [Link]/19746333/Lesson.

Miraglia, Ann. “Susan B. Anthony: The Rhetorical Strategy of Her Constitutional Argument

(1872)”, [Link]/cmc_theses/4/.

“Transcript of speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. August 28, 1963. Lincoln Memorial in

Washington D.C.”, [Link]/mb021/[Link].