american dream speech essay

Essay on Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech

I have a dream: essay introduction, martin luther king’s speech: essay conclusion, reference list.

One of the finest explanations of American’s dream is the powerful speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. He delivered the speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, in Washington D.C. The speech is mainly centered on racial equality and stoppage of discrimination.

At that time, racial segregation ruled in almost all places: be it schools, neighborhoods and even in social places. With violence and riots so often, it was a disturbing moment for America although the U.S government was doing nothing to change the situation. Through the speech, Dr. King was educating inspiring and informing both the civil supporters and the unborn generation in the world to reach out to their dreams and giving his audience hope for a better future.

Up to the time when he was delivering the speech, African Americans were still under slavery from the white people as indicated in the below excerpt.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination…….One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land (Luther, 1963, para. 2).

The speech depicts the idea that someone can actually be anything that he dreams of becoming. Dr. King suggested that America is a land full of opportunities and that Americans should maximize on them. Before transforming the world, he saw the need to begin in America. Dr. King began the speech with a rhetoric phrase, ’Now is the time’, a tool that he used throughout speech. In the sixth paragraph of his speech, he used the phrase six times.

He was echoing to his audience to get hold of the moment. More so he used the phrase, ‘I have a dream eight times. By so doing he was echoing future hope for the people that will make them forget about all the slavery sufferings and injustices that they had faced while under slavery.

This is a sign of hope for the future too. He brought in the idea of slavery to suggest that it is still operational in today’s world. By using the word ‘slave-owners’, Dr. King was referring to the white, however to calm any tension between the black and the white people, he re-unites them by saying, “… will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood” (Luther, 1963, para.12).

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners ………, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice…. I have a dream today (Luther, 1963, para.12).

The dream in the above context symbolizes the aspirations that Dr. King had of America setting the stage for the rest of the world. He also says that ‘this nation will rise up’ meaning that he had fathomed a revolution time when the Americans will be accepted as right persons in the States (Luther, 1963, para.12).

There was an established racial discrimination that is why he sent such a strong message to the white. More importantly is the fact that his words were advocating for peace hence providing the vision that anyone would buy it. There above discussion hence shows that Martin Luther King, Jr was really, an effective public speaker.

Luther, M. (1963). I have a dream. Web.

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Bibliography

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“The American Dream” July 4th Speech Transcript – Martin Luther King, Jr.

On July 4, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave an Independence Day speech. Read the full transcript of his speech here.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 00:00 ) I would like to discuss some of the problems that we confront in the world today, and some of the problems that we confront in our own nation by using as a subject The American Dream. I choose this subject because America is essentially a dream. It is a dream of a land where men of all races, of all nationalities, and of all creeds, can live together as brothers. The substance of the dream is expressed in these sublime words, “We hold these truths to be self- evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 01:39 ) Now, we notice in the very beginning that at the center of this dream is an amazing universalism. It does not say some men, but it says all men. It does not say all white men, but it says all men, which includes black men. It does not say all Gentiles, but it says all men, which includes Jews. It does not say all Protestants, but it says all men, which includes Catholics. That is something else that we notice in this American Dream, which is one of the things that distinguishes our form of government with some of the other totalitarian systems.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 02:43 ) It says that each individual has certain inherent rights that are neither derived from or conferred by the state. They are gifts from the hands of the almighty God. Very seldom, if ever, in the history of the world has a socio-political document expressed in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language, the dignity and the worth of human personality. While the American Dream reminds us that every man is a heir of a legacy of worthfullness. But ever since the Founding Fathers of our nation dreamed this dream, America has been something of a schizophrenic personality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 03:54 ) On the one hand, we have proudly professed the noble principles of democracy. On the other hand, we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles. Indeed, slavery and segregation have been strange paradoxes in a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal. But now more than ever before, America is challenged to realize its noble dream, for the shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of an anemic democracy, And the price that the United States must pay for the continued exploitation and oppression of the Negro and other minority groups, is the price of its own destruction. There are approximately 2 billion 700 million people in the world, and the vast majority of these people live in Asia and Africa. For years most of these people have been dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated, and humiliated by some foreign power. Today they are gaining that independence. More than 1 billion 600 million of the former of 1 billion, 900 million colonial subjects have their independence today, and they are saying in no uncertain terms that racism and colonialism must go.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 05:52 ) So in a real sense our hour is late, and the clock of destiny is ticking out, and we must act now before it is too late. It is trite but urgently true that if America is to remain a first-class nation, she can no longer have second-class citizens. I must rush on to say that we must not seek to solve this problem merely to meet the Communist challenge. We must not seek to do it merely to appeal to Asian and African peoples. In the final analysis, racial discrimination must be uprooted from our society because it is morally wrong. It must be done because segregation stands against all of the noble precepts of our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 06:54 ) It must be done because segregation substitutes an I-It relationship for the I-Thou relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things, and so this problem must be solved not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling. So every person of goodwill in this nation is called upon to work passionately and unrelentingly to realize the American Dream. And the persons who are working to do this are not dangerous agitators, they are not dangerous rabble-rousers, but they are the persons working to save the soul of America.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 07:51 ) I would like to suggest some things that we must do in order to realize this great dream. First, we must begin with a world perspective, for we will not be able to realize the American Dream until we work to realize a world dream. A world dream for peace, and brotherhood, and goodwill. The world in which we live is geographically one, and now we are challenged to make it spiritually one. Now, it is true that the geographical oneness of this age in which we live was brought into being to a large extent through man’s scientific ingenuity.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 08:50 ) Man, through his scientific genius, has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. Yes, he’s been able to carve highways through the stratosphere, and our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that one’s took days. I think Bob Hope has adequately described this new jet age in which we live, and it is not the usual thing for a preacher to be quoting Bob Hope, but I think he has adequately described this new jet age. He said it is an age in which it is possible to take a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to New York, and if on taking off in Los Angeles, you develop hiccups, you will hic in Los Angeles and cup in New York City.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 09:45 ) You know it is possible, because of the time difference, to take a flight from Tokyo on Sunday morning and arrived in Seattle, Washington on the preceding Saturday night. And when your friends meet you at the airport and ask when you left Tokyo, you would have to say, “I left tomorrow.” That’s the kind of age in which we live. Now, this is a bit humorous, but I’m trying to laugh a basic fact into all of us, and it is simply this, that through our scientific genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 10:23 ) Now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood, and me must all learn to live together as brothers, or we will all perish together as fools. Every individual must learn this. Every nation must learn this. Every nation must realize its dependence on other nations. Some months ago Mrs. King and I journeyed to that great country known as India, and I never will forget the experience. I never will forget many of the conversations, experience to talk with the great leaders of India, and to meet people in the cities and the villages throughout that nation will remain dear to me as long as the chords of memory shall let them.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 11:26 ) I must say to you this evening that there were those depressing moments. How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes millions of people going to bed hungry at night? How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes, millions of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night? In Calcutta alone, more than a million people sleep on the sidewalks every night. They have no beds to sleep in. They have no houses to go in. How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of-

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 12:03 ) How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of 400 million people, more than 370 million make an annual income of less than $60 a year. Most of these people have never seen a doctor or dentist. And as I noticed these conditions something within me cried out, can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned? An answer came, oh, no, because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India. And I started thinking of the fact that here in America we spend more than $1 million a day to start surplus food. And I said to myself, I know where we can store that food free of charge, in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of people all over the world who go to bed hungry at night. Maybe we’ve spent far too much of our money establishing military bases around the world rather than bases of genuine concern and understanding.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 13:13 ) All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated. We are tied in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. And whatever it affects one directly it affects all indirectly. And as long as there is extreme poverty in this world no one can be totally rich, even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than 28 or 30 years, no one can be totally healthy even if he just got a checkup in the finest clinic of the nation. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 14:10 ) John Donne called it years ago and placed it in graphic times, no man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. And he goes on toward the end to say any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. We must come to see this if we are to realize the American dream. Next thing that must be done, we must get rid of the notion once and for all that there are superior and inferior races. Somehow this notion still lingers with us. We must make it palpably clear that a doctrine of white supremacy is both rationally absurd and morally unjustifiable.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 15:15 ) And certainly this has been pointed out by authorities and scholars. It has been pointed out by the anthropological sciences, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits and others have made it clear that there are no superior races. There may be superior and inferior individuals academically within all races, but no superior or inferior races. That somehow there are four types of blood and they are found in all races, but in spite of this, the notion still lingers. There was a time that people tried to justify racial inferiority on the basis of the Bible and religion.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 16:06 ) And so someone could argue that the Negro is inferior by nature because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. And Paul’s dictum became a watch where [inaudible 00:16:18] be obedient to your master. And then there was one brother who had probably read the logic of Aristotle. Aristotle used to deal with the syllogism, which had a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion. And one brother put his argument in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He could say, all men are made in the image of God. This was the major premise. And then came the minor premise, God as everybody knows is not a Negro, therefore the Negro is not a man. This was the type of reasoning that was used at that time to justify the inferiority of the Negro. But now it isn’t done so much on the biblical and religious ground, it’s something else.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 17:12 ) It’s argued on subtle sociological and cultural grounds. And so we hear these things from time to time, the Negro is not culturally ready for integration. And of course, if you integrate the schools and if you integrate public facilities the Negro will pull the white race back a generation. And then there are those who gone to argue the Negro is a criminal, he is innately a criminal, they would say. He lags behind in all of his standards. So they use these subtle sociological arguments to say that integration should take place 100 years from now. You must lift these standards, they would argue. Well, the only answer that we can give is that if there are lagging standards in the Negro community, they lag because of segregation and discrimination.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 18:11 ) We must say to them that poverty, ignorance and disease breed crime, whatever the racial group may be. These things are environmental and not racial. And it is a torturous logic to use the tragic results of segregation as an argument for the continuation of it. The thing to do is to get rid of the causal basis. And so we must get rid of the notion once and for all if we are to realize the American dream, that there are superior and inferior races. And I think we already have numerous and inspiring examples of Negros who have demonstrated that human nature cannot be cataloged and who has successfully refuted the myths of racial inferiority. In spite of the fact that the Negro has had to walk through the long and desolate night of oppression, he has risen up so often to plunge against cloud filled nights of affliction, new and blazing stars of inspiration.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 19:18 ) And so from an old slave cabin on Virginia’s Hill, Booker T. Washington rose up to be one of America’s great leaders. He lit a torch in Alabama then darkness fled. From the red Hills of Gordon County, Georgia, an iron foundery of Chattanooga, Tennessee in the arms of a mother who couldn’t either read my write, Roland Hayes rose up to be one of the world’s great singer and carried his melodious voice into the palace of King George the Fifth and the mansion of Queen Mother to Spain. From a poverty stricken area to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Marian Anderson rose up to be the world’s greatest contralto so that a Toscanini could say that a voice like this comes only once in a century. And Sibelius of Finland could say, my roof is too low for such a voice. From crippling circumstances, George Washington Carver rose up and carved for himself and imperishable niche in annals of science. And there was a star in the sky to female leadership. And then came Mary McLeod Bethune and she grabbed it and allowed it to shine in her life with all of its radiant beauty. And there was a star in the diplomatic sky. And then came Ralph Bunche, the grandson of a slave preacher and allowed it to shine in his life in beautiful terms. All of these people have revealed the myths of racial inferiority cannot stand. They have justified the conviction of the poy, fleecy locks and black complexion cannot fault that nature’s claim, skin may differ, but affection dwells in black and white the same. And while so tall as to reach the pole, or to grasp at the ocean at a span, I must be measured by my soul and the mind is a standard of the man. And so we are challenged to get rid of the notion once and for all that there are inferior and superior races.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 21:50 ) And if the American dream is to be a reality, we must continue to engage in creative protests in order to break down those barriers which make it impossible for us to realize the American dream. Now we must get rid of two false ideas in order to continue to engage in creative protests. One idea is the myth of time. There are those people who argue that time alone will solve this problem. And so they say, you must not push things. You must be patient. You must sit down and wait. And sometimes they’ve decorate it in even larger terms, they say cool off for a while and slow up for a while. Time is the only thing that can solve this problem. What we must come to see is that evolution is true in the biological realm.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 22:58 ) And so Darwin is right at that point, but when a Herbert Spencer seeks to apply to the whole of society, that is little evidence for it. Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability, it comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. And without this hard work, time itself becomes the ally insurgent and primitive forces of rational, emotionalism and social stagnation so that we must somehow get rid of this idea that time alone will solve the problem. We must use time. Another idea is idea the myth of what I call educational determinism. It is idea that only education will solve this problem. I’m sure you’ve heard this, that you’ve got to change the hearts of people and people must be educated to the point that-

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 24:03 ) And people must be educated to the point that they will change their attitudes, now there’s some truth in this. But to say, this is the only thing is where we developed the myth. It is not either education or legislation. It is both education and legislation. Now it may be true that you cannot legislate morality. It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me. And I think that’s pretty important also. This is what we seek to do through the law, to control the external effects of bad internal feelings. Religion and education would have to change the attitudes but legislation, executive orders, judicial decrees will have to control the external effects of bad internal attitudes. Therefore, if we are to realize the American dream, we must continue to work through legislation.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 25:15 ) So it is necessary for Congress to pass meaningful legislation. It is needed at this present hour, even though the president of our nation does not feel that additional legislation is needed in civil rights, I must respectfully disagree with him. There is need this year, at this hour for stronger civil rights legislation. Then we must continue to urge the president of the nation to issue executive orders to do away with these barriers. Then we must continue to work through the courts to gain judicial decrees so that these things will be changed. And added to this must be the method of nonviolent direct action. And I am more convinced every day that the most potent weapon available to oppress people in that struggle for freedom and human dignity is this weapon of nonviolent resistance. It brings with it many important aspects. It has certain practical consequences, which are very important. It has a way of disarming the opponent, exposing his moral defenses, weakening his morale, and at the same time working on his conscience. So he doesn’t know exactly how to handle this method. If he puts you in jail, that’s all right. If he doesn’t put you in jail, that’s all right. If he beats you, you accept that. If he doesn’t beat you, you accept that. If he tries to kill you, you develop the quiet courage of dying if necessary, without killing. And so he soon discovers that that is no answer for it.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 27:14 ) And also it has with a certain moral aspects, it makes it possible for the individuals or the group to secure a moral ends through moral means. One of the big problems in history has been in this discussion of ends and means. There have been those who argued that the end justifies the means. So they have the idea that sometime, the somehow destructive means can bring about constructive ends. Systems of government have come into being with this theory. Sometimes they would argue that the end of the classless society justified using violence and defeat and any other method and nonviolent resistance breaks with communism or any other methods that would say the end justifies the means.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 28:10 ) In the long run, the history of destructive means cannot justify constructive ends because the end is preexistent in the means. And so this method has certain moral aspects that go along with the practical. Then it is based on the great ethical principle of love. Now people ask me so often, what in the world do you mean when you say to us love these people who are trying to destroy us and these people who are trying to defeat us, what do you mean? How can you love people like this?

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 28:50 ) Now I always have to pause and try to give the meaning of love in the area of human relations. And fortunately the Greek language comes to our aid at this point, there are three words in the Greek language for love. There’s the word eros. This is the sort of aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his dialogues, a yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. It has come to us to be a sort of a romantic love. Romantic love is a phase of eros.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 29:25 ) And so we all know about eros. We’ve experienced it. We live with it. We read about it in all of the beauties of literature. In a sense Edgar Allen Poe was talking about eros when he talked to his beautiful Annabel Lee with the love surrounded by the halo of eternity. In a sense, Shakespeare was speaking of eros when he said love is not love which alters, when it’s alteration finds the bins with the remover to remove it. Isn’t ever fixed Mark that looks on Tempus and is never shaken. It is a start to every wandering bark. You know, I can remember that because I used to quote it to my wife when we were courting. That’s eros.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 30:07 ) The Greek language talks about phileo, which is a sort of a reciprocal love. It is a love, an intimate affection between personal friends and so on this level you love because you are loved. You love people that you like. This is friendship.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 30:27 ) Then the Greek language comes out with another word. It is a word agape. Agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. At any rate when one arises to love on this level, he loves men not because he likes them, not because their ways appeal to him. But he loves everyman, because God loves him and he rises to the point of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. I believe that this is a type of expression of love that can guide us through this period of transition. This is a part of the nonviolent resistance approach. It has practical consequences and is based on high and noble moral and ethical principles. So the individual who follows this method stands up before the opponent and says we will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 31:58 ) We can not, not in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. So do to us what you will, and we will still love you. Put us in jail and we will go in with humble smiles on our faces. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hours, drag us out on some wayside road and beat us and leave us half dead and we will still love you. Threaten our children, bomb our homes and do all of the things of violence that you think we’ll defeat our movement and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country and make it appear that we are not fit morally, culturally or otherwise for integration and we will still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer and one day, we will win our freedom. But we will not only win freedom for ourselves. We will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process. Therefore our victory will be a double victory.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 33:15 ) Seems to me that this is the way and this approach to the problem is not without successful precedent. Mohandas Gandhi used it in India in a magnificent manner to free his people from the political domination and the economic exploitation that had been inflicted upon them for years. He achieved this victory by using only the weapons of soul force, non-injury courage and moral principals.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 33:49 ) Negro students of the south have used it in a marvelous manner to stand up against the principalities of segregation to let them know that the hundreds of people who’ve gone into jail in Jackson, Mississippi have gone into jail in order to get America out of the dilemma that she finds herself in as a result of the continued existence of segregation and discrimination. And also let them know at end, anybody who lives in the United States must be concerned about this problem. And so people who live in New York or in California or in Illinois, have an obligation to be concerned about this problem. And whoever lives inside the United States cannot be considered an outside agitator because this problem is the concern of every individual in this nation and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore this method has worked in many dimensions in our day, and in our generation, this method of nonviolent resistance. God grant that as we go on with this struggle, working with determination to realize the American dream, that we will delve deeper into the meaning of nonviolence. I believe firmly that it will help us to go into the new age with the right attitude. We will not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage thus abrading justice. By adhering to this method, all of the Negro people in the United States, all of the colored people of the world will seek democracy for everybody. They will not to seek to substitute one tyranny for another. But I am convinced that black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of a whole human race and the creation of a society where all men.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 36:03 ) … the race, the creation of a society where all men can live together as brothers, and every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality. And also following this method, we may be able to teach this world something that it so desperately needs to learn and resolve when in a day when Sputniks and explorers are dashing through outer space, and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence, it is now either nonviolence or nonexistence. And By following this method right here in this nation, maybe somehow Russia then the United States will come to see this and move on toward disarmament and suspension of nuclear tests on a permanent basis. And the setting up of an international police force through the UN and thereby make brotherhood and peace a reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 37:10 ) This is what we must do in order to realize the American dream. I believe if we would follow these things, we will be able to bring that day into being. But it will not come until every individual in our nation develops this type of concern. And may I say, as I move toward my conclusion, that this is not just a local problem. People who live in New York and California, and Illinois have an obligation to be concerned about this problem and whoever lives in-

Speaker 1: ( 37:52 ) This recording is briefly interrupted at this point.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 37:55 ) …host of clean hands in the area of brotherhood. We still confront segregation in its glaring and conspicuous forms in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and all over the South. We still confront it in it’s hidden and subtle forms in Illinois, in California, in Pennsylvania, and even in New York. And if democracy is to live, segregation must die. And we need people all over America who are genuine liberals. It is one thing to rise up with righteous indignation, when a Negro is lynched in Mississippi, or when a bus is burned in Anniston, Alabama, but if the person of goodwill were to rise up with as much righteous indignation when a Negro cannot live in his neighborhood, because he’s a Negro, when a Negro cannot join his professional society, or cannot be a member of this fraternity or sorority, or when a Negro cannot get position in his firm because he happens to be a Negro. In other words, there must be a concern on the part of people all over this country, and this is the way we will solve this problem.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 39:13 ) There are words that we use in every academic discipline, and pretty soon, these words become a part of the technical nomenclature to these particular disciplines. Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word than psychology, it is a word maladjusted. Maladjusted. And certainly we all want to live the well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic personalities.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 39:48 ) And I say to you this evening that there are some things in our social order to which I’m proud to be maladjusted. I call upon men of goodwill all over the nation to be maladjusted until the good society is a reality. I never intend to adjust myself to the evils of segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to become adjusted to the madness of militarism, and the self defeating effects of physical violence.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 40:36 ) And I think now it has come for men all over the nation and all over the world be maladjusted to all of these things. For it may well be that the salvation of our world lies in the hands of the maladjusted. And so if you will allow the preacher in me to come out now, let us be maladjusted.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 40:58 ) As maladjusted as the prophet Amos, who in the midst of the injustices of his day could cry out in words that echoed across the centuries, “Let justice run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 41:13 ) As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 41:23 ) As maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery, could cry out in words lifted to cosmic proportions, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 41:40 ) As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who could say, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Pray for them that spitefully use you.” And I believe that the world is in desperate need of such maladjustment. And with such maladjustment we would be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 42:10 ) And as we struggle to realize the American dream, let us realize that we do not struggle alone. Even though there are the difficult days ahead, even though before the victory’s won, somebody else will have to get scarred up, somebody else will to have to go to jail, maybe someone will have to face physical death. For the victories won, some will be misunderstood, called bad names, be dismissed as dangerous rabble-rousers and agitators. Even in the midst of that, the struggle must go on. Knowing that the victory can be won because the odds of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 42:55 ) And I am convinced that that is something in this universe, which justifies Carlyle in saying, “No lie can live forever.” There is something in the very court of the cosmos which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying “Truth, cursed to earth, will rise again.” There is something in this universe which justifies James Russell Lowell, in saying, “Truth, forever on the scaffold, wrong, forever on the throne.” Yet that scaffold sways the future. And so with this faith in the future, we will be able to adjourn the counsels of the staff rise from the fatigue of darkness, to the buoyancy of hope. And we will be able bring into being this new society and realize the American dream.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ( 43:48 ) This will be the day when all of the chosen black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

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"The Negro and the American Dream," Excerpt from Address at the Annual Freedom Mass Meeting of the North Carolina State Conference of Branches of the NAACP

Author:  King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date:  September 25, 1960

Location:  Charlotte, N.C.

Genre:  Speech

Topic:  Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views Nonviolence Voter registration

In this typed draft of his address, King shares his dream of a nation “where men of all races, colors, and creeds will live together as brothers” but warns that American racism has put the country’s international standing “at its lowest ebb.” 1  He further recommends five ways that black people can continue “to remind America” of the dream: continue to challenge segregation, utilize the freedom blacks currently enjoy, obtain the ballot, “suffer and sacrifice” to achieve freedom, and use nonviolent methods in the struggle. A newspaper account reported that King was introduced by author and editor Harry Golden to a crowd of 2,700 people at Charlotte’s Park Center. 2

This afternoon I would like to speak from the subject, “The Negro and the American Dream.” In a real sense America is essentially a dream--a dream yet unfilfilled. It is the dream of a land where men of all races, colors and creeds will live together as brothers. The substance of the dream is expressed in these sublime words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This is the dream. It is a profound, eloquent and unequivocal expression of the dignity and worth of all human personality.

But ever since the founding fathers of our nation dreamed this dream, America has manifested a schizophrenic personality. She has been torn between {two} selves--a self in which she has proudly professed democracy and a self in which she has sadly practiced the antithesis of democracy. Slavery and segregation have been strange paradoxes in a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal.

Now more than ever before America is challenged to bring her noble dream into reality. The shape of the world today does not permit America the luxury of exploiting the Negro and other minority groups. The price that America must pay for the continued opression of the Negro is the price of its own destruction. My recent travel in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America have convinced me that America is at its lowest ebb in international prestige; and most of this loss of prestige is due to our failure to grapple with the problem of racial injustice. We must face the painful fact that we are losing out in the struggle to win the minds of the uncommitted peoples of the world. Just this week the most eloquent spokesman of the Communist bloc, Nikita Khruschev, suggested in his speech to the U.N., among other things, that the headquarters of this great organization be moved from the United States. The American press generally was very careful to conceal one of the reasons Mr. Khruschev gave for suggesting this move. His direct words were: “Facts are known . . . of representatives of young African and Asian states being subjected to racial discrimination in the United States.” 3  While we are used to Mr. Khruschev’s inteperate and sometimes irresponsible words, we cannot dismiss these as totally false. The hour is late: the clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now! It is a trite yet urgently true observation that if America is to remain a firstclass nation it cannot have second-class citizens.

But after saying this I would like to make it clear that the primary reason for bringing an end to racial discrimination in America must not be the Communist challange. Nor must it be merely to appeal to Asian and African peoples. The primary reason for uprooting racial discrimination from our society is that it is morally wrong. It is a cancerous disease that prevents us from realizing the sublime principles of our Judeo-Christian tradition. It relegates persons to the status of things.

Therefore, those persons who are working courageously to break down the barriers of segregation and discrimination are the real saviors of democracy.

So many forces in our nation have served to scar the dream of our democracy. The Klu Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council and other extremists groups have scarred the dream by their fanatical acts and bitter words. But our federal government has also scarred the dream through its apathy and hypocricy, its betrayal of the cause of justice. And even many white people of good-will have scarred the dream through silence and fear. In the midst of this conspiracy of silence and apathy the Negro must act. It may well be that the Negro is God’s instrument to save the soul of America.

What can the Negro do to contimue to remind America of the necessity of realizing its dream?:

1. We must continue courageously to challenge the system of segregation. We must not rest until segregation is removed from every area of our nation’s life. Segregation, whether at a lunch counter, in a public park. In a school room, or in the Christian church, is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our moral and democratic health can be realized.

We must also make it palpably clear that we can never settle for token integration. If token integration is a good faith start, it may have some merit: but too often it is nothing but a bad faith evasive scheme. Ultimately, token integration is no more than token democracy.

2. We must make full and constructive use of the freedom we already possess.

We must not use our oppression as an excuse for mediocrity. History has proven that inner determination can often break through the outer shackles of circumstance.

3. We must make a determined effort to gain the ballot. One of the most significant steps that the Negro can take at this hour is that short walk to the voting booth. I propose that the creative movement that has electrified our nation as a result of the courageous student sit-ins, wade-ins, and kneel-ins will now add the deminsion of stand-ins at places of voter registration. Even in counties of the deep South where resistance is great, Negroes must organize themselves by the hundreds and thousands to stand nonviolently and peacefully for hours in the corridors and on the sidewalks of places of registration. 4  Such a movement may be the only thing that will dramatize the continued injustices the Negroes face in the area of voter registration, and the only thing that will arouse the conscience of our nation on this pressing issue.

External resistance is not the only present barrier to Negro voting. Apathy among Negroes themselves is also a factor. Even where the polls are open to all Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges.

4. We must be willing to suffer and sacrifice to achieve our freedom. Our freedom will never be handed out on a silver platter. Freedom is not free. It is always purchased with the high price of sacrifice and suffering.

5. We must be sure that our struggle is conducted on the highest level of dignity and discipline. Our method must be nonviolent to the core. We must not flirt with retaliatory violence or drink the poisonous wine of hate. Our aim must not be to defeat the white man or pay him back for past injustices heaped upon us.

I feel that this way of nonviolence is vital because it is the only way to reestablish the broken community. It is a powerful way to take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act.

This approach to the problem of oppression is not without successful precedent. We have the magnificent example of Gandhi who challenged the might of the British Empire and won independence for his people by using only the weapons of truth, noninjury, courage and soul force. Today we have the example of thousands of Negro students in the South who have courageously challenged the principalities of segregation. These young students have taken the deep groans and the passionate yearnings of the Negro people and filtered them in their own souls and fashioned them in a creative protest which is an epic known all over the nation. For the last few months they have moved in a uniquely meaningful orbit imparting light and heat to distant satellites. Through their nonviolent direct action they have been able to open hundreds of formerly segregated lunch counters in almost eighty cities. It is no overstatement to characterize these events as historic. Never before in the United States has so large a body of students spread a struggle over so great an area in pursuit of a goal of human dignity and freedom. I am convinced that future historians will have to record this student movement as one of the greatest epics of our heritage.

1.  In a 22 August telegram, King had accepted North Carolina NAACP president Kelly Alexander’s invitation to address the organization.

2.  Don Seaver, “King Tells Negroes to Start Voter Registration Protests,”  Charlotte Observer , 26 September 1960.

3.  Khrushchev addressed the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September. A complete transcript of his speech appeared in the  New York Times  the following day.

4.  An article in the  Charlotte Observer  reported that King encouraged mass “stand-ins” at voter registration places throughout the South (Seaver, “King Tells Negroes to Start Voter Registration Protests,”  Charlotte Observer  26 September 1960).

Source:  CSKC-INP, Coretta Scott King Collection, In Private Hands, Sermon file, folder 23, Negro and the American Dream 

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — I Have a Dream — Rhetorical Analysis of MLK Speech ‘I Have a Dream’

Rhetorical Analysis of Mlk Speech ‘i Have a Dream’

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Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 590 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Analysis of the speaker, analysis of the audience, analysis of rhetorical appeals, analysis of rhetorical devices, analysis of speech structure.

• Miller, K. (2002). Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech: The Rhetorical Situation Revisited. Communication Studies, 53(3-4), 227-231.
• Gibson, D. (2013). 50th Anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech: Revisiting a Lesson in Structure. The History Teacher, 47(1), 125-128.

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History Resources

Lincoln speech on slavery and the American Dream, 1858

A spotlight on a primary source by abraham lincoln.

In this manuscript, a fragment from one of Lincoln’s speeches during the 1858 Illinois Senate race against Stephen Douglas, Lincoln advances the fundamental truth to which all creatures are entitled, declaring that even a slave kept in ignorance "does constantly know that he is wronged." And he uses economic logic against slavery, arguing that in freedom "the weak . . . grow stronger, the ignorant, wiser; and all better, and happier together." Lincoln also says of those who strive "to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself. "

In these twenty-seven lines, Lincoln invokes the nation’s founding principles to stress the injustice of slavery, and in the course defines the American Dream, declaring, " Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of the equal rights of men, as I have, in part, stated them; ours began, by affirming those rights."

A full  transcript  is available.

[evi-]dent truth. Made so plain by our good Father in Heaven, that all feel and understand it, even down to brutes and creeping insects. The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him. So plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself .

Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of the equal rights of men, as I have, in part, stated them; ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant , and vicious , to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant, wiser; and all better, and happier together.

We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us. Look at it. Think of it. Look at it, in its aggregate grandeur, of extent of country, and numbers of population, of ship, and steamboat, and rail-

Questions for Discussion

Read the document introduction, view the image, and read the transcript. Then apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer the questions that follow.

• How does Lincoln attempt to destroy the arguments of those who defended slavery and claimed that it was “a very good thing”?
• Why does Lincoln consider the American system far superior to most other governments?
• Explain the benefits Lincoln outlines, and add your own, when citizens are provided with equal opportunity.

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Ellis Island: Gateway to the American Dream

This essay about Ellis Island recounts its significance as the primary immigration inspection center in the United States from 1892 to 1954. It discusses the rigorous inspection process, the diverse array of immigrants processed there, and the evolving role of Ellis Island over time. Despite occasional challenges and changes in immigration policies, Ellis Island remains a symbol of American pluralism and the immigrant experience, commemorated today through the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration.

How it works

Nestled in the expanse of New York Harbor, Ellis Island emerges as a pivotal locus in the annals of the United States, serving as the nation’s preeminent immigration inspection bastion from 1892 to 1954. This iconic threshold, traversed by over 12 million migrants in pursuit of fresh horizons, stands not only as a testament to American pluralism but also as a reflection of the nation’s intricate immigration ethos.

The narrative of Ellis Island commences on January 1, 1892, ushering in a tide of humanity yearning for ingress into the United States.

Annie Moore, a youthful Irish immigrant accompanied by her siblings, clinches the distinction of being the inaugural entrant into its confines. Ellis Island supplanted the Castle Garden Immigration Depot in lower Manhattan, its predecessor since 1855, adjudged insufficient to accommodate the burgeoning influx of migrants.

The selection of Ellis Island as the site for the novel immigration hub was strategic, owing to its adjacency to the Statue of Liberty, an emblem of liberty and opportunity. Nevertheless, the initial iteration of Ellis Island lacked the capacity to accommodate the burgeoning throngs. Fabricated from wood, the original edifice met its demise in a catastrophic conflagration in 1897. Swift reconstruction ensued, with the revamped facilities, crafted from fire-resistant materials, unveiled in 1900. This reconstituted framework was engineered to process up to 5,000 migrants daily.

Scrutiny at Ellis Island was exacting, marked by an exhaustive inspection regimen devised to preempt potential health hazards or fiscal liabilities. Immigrants underwent meticulous medical and legal assessments, a process that, for some, proved protracted and daunting, stretching across hours or even days. Notwithstanding these tribulations, the overwhelming majority of migrants received approval, typically within a brief span. Merely a scant 2 percent of arrivals encountered rejection at Ellis Island’s gates.

Existence on Ellis Island oscillated between optimism and trepidation, embodying the culmination of an arduous odyssey for many. The Grand Hall, the epicenter of processing, resonated with a cacophony of tongues and a kaleidoscope of ethnic attire. Anxiously, migrants awaited their summons, teetering on the precipice between ingress into America or, in rare instances, repatriation to their countries of origin.

The function of Ellis Island morphed over time in tandem with evolving immigration paradigms. The Immigration Act of 1924 precipitated a seismic reduction in migration, instituting quotas that delimited the influx from each nation. Consequently, Ellis Island’s purview transitioned primarily to detention and expulsion processing, alongside its service as a locus for the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II.

The denouement arrived on November 12, 1954, signifying the cessation of operations as the final detainee, Arne Peterssen, a Norwegian mariner, secured liberation. Subsequent to closure, dilapidation beset the edifices until restoration initiatives took flight in the 1980s. Restoration culminated in the public reopening of Ellis Island in 1990, enshrined within the Statue of Liberty National Monument and administered by the National Park Service. Presently, the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration stands as a testament to the influx of migrants who indelibly shaped America’s social and cultural tapestry.

Ellis Island endures as an emblematic microcosm of the American mosaic, encapsulating the nation’s embrace of diverse peoples alongside intermittent bouts of xenophobic resistance to newcomers. The chronicles of those who traversed Ellis Island illuminate the manifold travails and triumphs of those questing for a brighter future in a foreign land. It stands as an indelible homage to the resolute spirit of those who dared to dream of liberty and opportunity, instrumental in fashioning the vibrant and variegated America of today.

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TikTok challenges U.S. ban in court, calling it unconstitutional

Bobby Allyn

TikTok's suit is in response to a law passed by Congress giving ByteDance up to a year to divest from TikTok and find a new buyer, or face a nationwide ban. Kiichiro Sato/AP hide caption

TikTok's suit is in response to a law passed by Congress giving ByteDance up to a year to divest from TikTok and find a new buyer, or face a nationwide ban.

TikTok and its parent company on Tuesday filed a legal challenge against the United States over a law that President Biden signed last month outlawing the app nationwide unless it finds a buyer within a year.

In the petition filed in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the company said the legislation exceeds the bounds of the constitution and suppresses the speech of millions of Americans.

"Banning TikTok is so obviously unconstitutional, in fact, that even the Act's sponsors recognized that reality, and therefore have tried mightily to depict the law not as a ban at all, but merely a regulation of TikTok's ownership," according to the filing.

The law, passed through Congress at lightning speed, which caught many inside TikTok off guard, is intended to force TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese company in nine months, with the possibility of a three month extension if a possible sale is in play.

Yet lawyers for TikTok say the law offers the company a false choice, since fully divesting from its parent company, ByteDance, is "simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally," the challenge states. "And certainly not on the 270-day timeline required by the Act."

Anupam Chander, a law professor at Georgetown University who specializes in technology regulations, said if TikTok loses this legal fight, it will likely shut down in the U.S.

"The problem for TikTok is that they have a parent company that has these obligation in China, but they're trying to live by free speech rules by the United States," Chander said in an interview. "The question is whether American courts will believe that that's even possible."

TikTok says law based on "speculative and analytically flawed concerns"

Lawmakers in Washington have long been suspicious of TikTok, fearing its Chinese owner could use the popular app to spy on Americans or spread dangerous disinformation.

But in the company's legal petition, lawyers for TikTok say invoking "national security" does not give the government a free pass to violate the First Amendment, especially, TikTok, argues, when no public evidence has been presented of the Chinese government using the app as a weapon against Americans.

Possible TikTok ban could be 'an extinction-level event' for the creator economy

According to the filing, the law is based on "speculative and analytically flawed concerns about data security and content manipulation — concerns that, even if grounded in fact, could be addressed through far less restrictive and more narrowly tailored means."

New DOJ Filing: TikTok's Owner Is 'A Mouthpiece' Of Chinese Communist Party

Constitutional scholars say there are few ways for the government to restrict speech in a way that would survive a legal challenge. One of those ways is if the government can demonstrate a national security risk. Also key, legal experts say, is the government showing the speech suppression was the least restrictive option on the table.

TikTok said Congress ignored less restrictive ways of addressing the government's national security concerns.

"If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down," the filing states. "And for TikTok, any such divestiture would disconnect Americans from the rest of the global community."

Since more than 90% of TikTok's users are outside of America, Georgetown's Chander said selling the U.S.-based app to a different owner would cannibalize its own business.

"You can't really create a TikTok U.S., while having a different company manage TikTok Canada," Chander said in an interview. "What you're doing essentially is creating a rival between two TikToks," he said. " It may be better to take your marbles out of the United States and hope to make money outside of the U.S., rather than sell it at a fire-sale price."

TikTok critics call app a 'spy balloon on your phone'

The filing sets off what could be the most important battle for TikTok. It has been fending off legal challenges to its existence since former President Trump first sought to ban the app through an executive order in the summer of 2020. That effort was blocked by federal courts.

Since then, Democrats and Republicans have shown a rare moment of unity around calls to pressure TikTok to sever its ties with ByteDance, the Beijing-based tech giant that owns the video-streaming app.

Trump's Ban On TikTok Suffers Another Legal Setback

Congress has never before passed legislation that could outright ban a wildly popular social media app, a gesture the U.S. government has criticized authoritarian nations for doing.

In the case of TikTok, however, lawmakers have called the app a "spy balloon on your phone," emphasizing how the Chinese government could gain access to the personal data of U.S. citizens.

Worries also persist in Washington that Beijing could influence the views of Americans by dictating what videos are boosted on the platform. That concern has only become heightened seven months before a presidential election.

Yet the fears so far indeed remain hypothetical.

There is no publicly available example of the Chinese government attempting to use TikTok as an espionage or data collection tool. And no proof that the Chinese government has ever had a hand over what TikTok's 170 million American users see every day on the app.

TikTok says it offers U.S. a plan that would shut app down if it violated agreement

TikTok, for its part, says it has invested $2 billion on a plan, dubbed Project Texas, to separate its U.S. operation from its Chinese parent company. It deleted all of Americans' data from foreign servers and relocated all of the data to servers on U.S. soil overseen by the Austin-based tech company Oracle.

While the plan was intended to build trust with U.S. lawmakers and users, reports surfaced showing that data was still moving between staff in California and Beijing.

In the filing on Tuesday, TikTok said it submitted an agreement to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which has been probing the app for five years, that would allow the U.S. to suspend TikTok if it violated terms set forth in a national security plan.

But, lawyers for TikTok say, the deal was swept aside, "in favor of the politically expedient and punitive approach," the petition states.

Mnuchin claims he will place a bid to buy TikTok, even though app is not for sale

Despite the new law giving TikTok the ultimatum of selling or being shut down, there are many questions around how the app could even be bought by another company or group of investors.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told NPR on Monday, he is planning to assemble a group of investors to try to purchase TikTok without the app's algorithm.

Mnuchin, who declined to answer additional questions, said in between sessions at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles that the proposal to buy the app is still in the works, but he would not say when it would be formally submitted.

One major obstacle in any possible sale of TikTok is a glaring problem: The app is not for sale.

TikTok Ban Averted: Trump Gives Oracle-Walmart Deal His 'Blessing'

Despite the new law in the U.S., ByteDance says it does not intend to let go of the service. Furthermore, winning the support of China would be necessary, and officials in Beijing are adamantly against any forced sale.

In 2020, amid the Trump administration's clamp down on the app, China added "content-recommendation algorithms" to its export-control list, effectively adding new regulations over how TikTok's all-powerful algorithm could ever be sold.

ByteDance, not TikTok, developed and controls the algorithm that determines what millions see on the app every day. The technology has become the envy of Silicon Valley, and no U.S. tech company has been able dislodge TikTok's firm hold on the short-form video market. Experts say key to its success is its highly engaging and hyper-personalized video-ranking algorithm.

The algorithm, which involves millions of lines of software code developed by thousands of engineers over many years, cannot be easily transferred to the U.S., even if China did allow it, TikTok's challenge states.

Lawyers for TikTok argue that "any severance [of the algorithm] would leave TikTok without access to the recommendation engine that has created a unique style and community that cannot be replicated on any other platform today."

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What Stands Between US Citizens and the American Dream Today

This Is the Next Generation of Marxism

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Kristen Eichamer / @KEichamer / Crystal Bonham / May 16, 2024

With or without the proverbial white picket fence, housing prices and interest rates are up, making it almost impossible for young people to afford to buy a home, a core tenet of the American dream. (Photo: Ed Freeman/Getty Images)

Get your FREE digital copy of The Heritage Foundation’s Founders’ Almanac.

Is the American dream a feasible aspiration anymore?

Housing prices and interest rates are up, making it almost impossible for young people to afford to buy a home. Fertility rates continue to reach historic lows. These signs point to the decay of the American dream. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is failing to address the challenges preventing U.S. citizens from achieving that American dream.

Everyday Americans are struggling to pay for gas, groceries, and rent. That’s Bidenomics .

As for homeownership, increased home prices and mortgage rates continue to discourage homebuyers. Since 2020, home prices increased 47.1%, with Forbes reporting the national median price of a home coming in around $400,000. Years of underbuilding and rising mortgage rates have only worsened the situation for Americans, with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage currently at about 7.09%.

Those rates are increasing monthly payments past the point of comfort for many prospective homebuyers. Rocket Mortgage estimated the average monthly mortgage payment was about $2,051, higher than some monthly rent payments.

But let’s forget about the house with a white picket fence for a moment. There’s also a family aspect of the American dream.

Unfortunately, that isn’t looking very positive either.

Heritage Foundation research found the total fertility rate in the U.S. dropped to 1.62 this year, the lowest in history, well below the 2.1 U.S. population replacement rate. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

The explanation for this comes from a variety of societal pressures, ranging from the Left’s anti-nuclear family agenda to an increased emphasis on one’s professional identity. Some even point to the opportunity cost of climbing the corporate ladder, explaining the value of that outweighs that of starting a family, especially in the current economy.

Those legitimate concerns cause one to worry about the future of our country.

Still, there is reason to be hopeful. While this generation struggles to accomplish its version of the American dream, public figures such as NFL Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker are standing up for some of the most fundamental aspects of that dream. 

During a commencement speech at Benedictine College, Butker emphasized the importance of traditional values and marriage. He challenged women to think outside of societal pressures and embrace motherhood as well.

Many Americans are feeling the weight of bad public policies and poor leadership. However, Butker and others are standing up for the common sense and truth that formed the American dream, and that’s something to celebrate.

On today’s edition of the “Problematic Women” podcast, we discuss the future of the American dream. Also on today’s show, U.S. News & World Report has ranked the best states to live in, and the findings might surprise you. Plus, because it’s National Police Week , we discuss what the state of justice looks like under the Biden administration. And as always, we’ll be crowning our Problematic Woman of the Week.

Listen to the podcast below:

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Stormy Daniels Takes the Stand

The porn star testified for eight hours at donald trump’s hush-money trial. this is how it went..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

It’s 6:41 AM. I’m feeling a little stressed because I’m running late. It’s the fourth week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial. It’s a white collar trial. Most of the witnesses we’ve heard from have been, I think, typical white collar witnesses in terms of their professions.

We’ve got a former publisher, a lawyer, accountants. The witness today, a little less typical, Stormy Daniels, porn star in a New York criminal courtroom in front of a jury more accustomed to the types of witnesses they’ve already seen. There’s a lot that could go wrong.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today, what happened when Stormy Daniels took the stand for eight hours in the first criminal trial of Donald J. Trump. As before, my colleague Jonah Bromwich was inside the courtroom.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It’s Friday, May 10th.

So it’s now day 14 of this trial. And I think it’s worth having you briefly, and in broad strokes, catch listeners up on the biggest developments that have occurred since you were last on, which was the day that opening arguments were made by both the defense and the prosecution. So just give us that brief recap.

Sure. It’s all been the prosecution’s case so far. And prosecutors have a saying, which is that the evidence is coming in great. And I think for this prosecution, which is trying to show that Trump falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal, to ease his way into the White House in 2016, the evidence has been coming in pretty well. It’s come in well through David Pecker, former publisher of The National Enquirer, who testified that he entered into a secret plot with Trump and Michael Cohen, his fixer at the time, to suppress negative stories about Trump, the candidate.

It came in pretty well through Keith Davidson, who was a lawyer to Stormy Daniels in 2016 and negotiated the hush money payment. And we’ve seen all these little bits and pieces of evidence that tell the story that prosecutors want to tell. And the case makes sense so far. We can’t tell what the jury is thinking, as we always say.

But we can tell that there’s a narrative that’s coherent and that matches up with the prosecution’s opening statement. Then we come to Tuesday. And that day really marks the first time that the prosecution’s strategy seems a little bit risky because that’s the day that Stormy Daniels gets called to the witness stand.

OK, well, just explain why the prosecution putting Stormy Daniels on the stand would be so risky. And I guess it makes sense to answer that in the context of why the prosecution is calling her as a witness at all.

Well, you can see why it makes sense to have her. The hush money payment was to her. The cover-up of the hush money payment, in some ways, concerns her. And so she’s this character who’s very much at the center of this story. But according to prosecutors, she’s not at the center of the crime. The prosecution is telling a story, and they hope a compelling one. And arguably, that story starts with Stormy Daniels. It starts in 2006, when Stormy Daniels says that she and Trump had sex, which is something that Trump has always denied.

So if prosecutors were to not call Stormy Daniels to the stand, you would have this big hole in the case. It would be like, effect, effect, effect. But where is the cause? Where is the person who set off this chain reaction? But Stormy Daniels is a porn star. She’s there to testify about sex. Sex and pornography are things that the jurors were not asked about during jury selection. And those are subjects that bring up all kinds of different complex reactions in people.

And so, when the prosecutors bring Stormy Daniels to the courtroom, it’s very difficult to know how the jurors will take it, particularly given that she’s about to describe a sexual episode that she says she had with the former president. Will the jurors think that makes sense, as they sit here and try to decide a falsifying business records case, or will they ask themselves, why are we hearing this?

So the reason why this is the first time that the prosecution’s strategy is, for journalists like you, a little bit confusing, is because it’s the first time that the prosecution seems to be taking a genuine risk in what they’re putting before these jurors. Everything else has been kind of cut and dry and a little bit more mechanical. This is just a wild card.

This is like live ammunition, to some extent. Everything else is settled and controlled. And they know what’s going to happen. With Stormy Daniels, that’s not the case.

OK, so walk us through the testimony. When the prosecution brings her to the stand, what actually happens?

It starts, as every witness does, with what’s called direct examination, which is a fancy word for saying prosecutors question Stormy Daniels. And they have her tell her story. First, they have her tell the jury about her education and where she grew up and her professional experience. And because of Stormy Daniels’s biography, that quickly goes into stripping, and then goes into making adult films.

And I thought the prosecutor who questioned her, Susan Hoffinger, had this nice touch in talking about that, because not only did she ask Daniels about acting in adult films. But she asked her about writing and directing them, too, emphasizing the more professional aspects of that work and giving a little more credit to the witness, as if to say, well, you may think this or you may think that. But this is a person with dignity who took what she did seriously. Got it.

What’s your first impression of Daniels as a witness?

It’s very clear that she’s nervous. She’s speaking fast. She’s laughing to herself and making small jokes. But the tension in the room is so serious from the beginning, from the moment she enters, that those jokes aren’t landing. So it just feels, like, really heavy and still and almost oppressive in there. So Daniels talking quickly, seeming nervous, giving more answers than are being asked of her by the prosecution, even before we get to the sexual encounter that she’s about to describe, all of that presents a really discomfiting impression, I would say.

And how does this move towards the encounter that Daniels ultimately has?

It starts at a golf tournament in 2006, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Daniels meets Trump there. There are other celebrities there, too. They chatted very briefly. And then she received a dinner invitation from him. She thought it over, she says. And she goes to have dinner with Trump, not at a restaurant, by the way. But she’s invited to join him in the hotel suite.

So she gets to the hotel suite. And his bodyguard is there. And the hotel door is cracked open. And the bodyguard greets her and says she looks nice, this and that. And she goes in. And there’s Donald Trump, just as expected. But what’s not expected, she says, is that he’s not wearing what you would wear to a dinner with a stranger, but instead, she says, silk or satin pajamas. She asked him to change, she says. And he obliges.

He goes, and he puts on a dress shirt and dress pants. And they sit down at the hotel suite’s dining room table. And they have a kind of bizarre dinner. Trump is asking her very personal questions about pornography and safe sex. And she testifies that she teased him about vain and pompous he is. And then at some point, she goes to the bathroom. And she sees that he has got his toiletries in there, his Old Spice, his gold tweezers.

Very specific details.

Yeah, we’re getting a ton of detail in this scene. And the reason we’re getting those is because prosecutors are trying to elicit those details to establish that this is a credible person, that this thing did happen, despite what Donald Trump and his lawyers say. And the reason you can know it happened, prosecutors seem to be saying, is because, look at all these details she can still summon up.

She comes out of the bathroom. And she says that Donald Trump is on the hotel bed. And what stands out to me there is what she describes as a very intense physical reaction. She says that she blacked out. And she quickly clarifies, she doesn’t mean from drugs or alcohol. She means that, she says, that the intensity of this experience was such that, suddenly, she can’t remember every detail. The prosecution asks a question that cuts directly to the sex. Essentially, did you start having sex with him? And Daniels says that she did. And she continues to provide more details than even, I think, the prosecution wanted.

And I think we don’t want to go chapter and verse through this claimed sexual encounter. But I wonder what details stand out and which details feel important, given the prosecution’s strategy here.

All the details stand out because it’s a story about having had sex with a former president. And the more salacious and more private the details feel, the more you’re going to remember them. So we’ll remember that Stormy Daniels said what position they had sex in. We’ll remember that she said he didn’t use a condom. Whether that’s important to the prosecution’s case, now, that’s a much harder question to answer, as we’ve been saying.

But what I can tell you is, as she’s describing having had sex with Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is sitting right there, and Eric Trump, his son, is sitting behind him, seeming to turn a different color as he hears this embarrassment of his father being described to a courtroom full of reporters at this trial, it’s hard to even describe the energy in that room. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. And it was just Daniels’s testimony and, seemingly, the former President’s emotions. And you almost felt like you were trapped in there with both of them as this description was happening.

Well, I think it’s important to try to understand why the prosecution is getting these details, these salacious, carnal, pick your word, graphic details about sex with Donald Trump. What is the value, if other details are clearly making the point that she’s recollecting something?

Well, I think, at this point, we can only speculate. But one thing we can say is, this was uncomfortable. This felt bad. And remember, prosecutor’s story is not about the sex. It’s about trying to hide the sex. So if you’re trying to show a jury why it might be worthwhile to hide a story, it might be worth —

Providing lots of salacious details that a person would want to hide.

— exposing them to how bad that story feels and reminding them that if they had been voters and they had heard that story, and, in fact, they asked Daniels this very question, if you hadn’t accepted hush money, if you hadn’t signed that NDA, is this the story you would have told? And she said, yes. And so where I think they’re going with this, but we can’t really be sure yet, is that they’re going to tell the jurors, hey, that story, you can see why he wanted to cover that up, can’t you?

You mentioned the hush money payments. What testimony does Daniels offer about that? And how does it advance the prosecution’s case of business fraud related to the hush money payments?

So little evidence that it’s almost laughable. She says that she received the hush money. But we actually already heard another witness, her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, testify that he had received the hush money payment on her behalf. And she testified about feeling as if she had to sell this story because the election was fast approaching, almost as if her leverage was slipping away because she knew this would be bad for Trump.

That feels important. But just help me understand why it’s important.

Well, what the prosecution has been arguing is that Trump covered up this hush money payment in order to conceal a different crime. And that crime, they say, was to promote his election to the presidency by illegal means.

Right, we’ve talked about this in the past.

So when Daniels ties her side of the payment into the election, it just reminds the jurors maybe, oh, right, this is what they’re arguing.

So how does the prosecution end this very dramatic, and from everything you’re saying, very tense questioning of Stormy Daniels about this encounter?

Well, before they can even end, the defense lawyers go and they consult among themselves. And then, with the jury out of the room, one of them stands up. And he says that the defense is moving for a mistrial.

On what terms?

He says that the testimony offered by Daniels that morning is so prejudicial, so damning to Trump in the eyes of the jury, that the trial can no longer be fair. Like, how could these jurors have heard these details and still be fair when they render their verdict? And he says a memorable expression. He says, you can’t un-ring that bell, meaning they heard it. They can’t un-hear it. It’s over. Throw out this trial. It should be done.

Wow. And what is the response from the judge?

So the judge, Juan Merchan, he hears them out. And he really hears them out. But at the end of their arguments, he says, I do think she went a little too far. He says that. He said, there were things that were better left unsaid.

By Stormy Daniels?

By Stormy Daniels. And he acknowledges that she is a difficult witness. But, he says, the remedy for that is not a mistrial, is not stopping the whole thing right now. The remedy for that is cross-examination. If the defense feels that there are issues with her story, issues with her credibility, they can ask her whatever they want. They can try to win the jury back over. If they think this jury has been poisoned by this witness, well, this is their time to provide the antidote. The antidote is cross-examination. And soon enough, cross-examination starts. And it is exactly as intense and combative as we expected.

We’ll be right back.

So, Jonah, how would you characterize the defense’s overall strategy in this intense cross-examination of Stormy Daniels?

People know the word impeach from presidential impeachments. But it has a meaning in law, too. You impeach a witness, and, specifically, their credibility. And that’s what the defense is going for here. They are going to try to make Stormy Daniels look like a liar, a fraud, an extortionist, a money-grubbing opportunist who wanted to take advantage of Trump and sought to do so by any means necessary.

And what did that impeachment strategy look like in the courtroom?

The defense lawyer who questions Stormy Daniels is a woman named Susan Necheles. She’s defended Trump before. And she’s a bit of a cross-examination specialist. We even saw her during jury selection bring up these past details to confront jurors who had said nasty things about Trump on social media with. And she wants to do the same thing with Daniels. She wants to bring up old interviews and old tweets and things that Daniels has said in the past that don’t match what Daniels is saying from the stand.

What’s a specific example? And do they land?

Some of them land. And some of them don’t. One specific example is that Necheles confronts Daniels with this old tweet, where Daniels says that she’s going to dance down the street if Trump goes to jail. And what she’s trying to show there is that Daniels is out for revenge, that she hates Trump, and that she wants to see him go to jail. And that’s why she’s testifying against him.

And Daniels is very interesting during the cross-examination. It’s almost as if she’s a different person. She kind of squares her shoulders. And she sits up a little straighter. And she leans forward. Daniels is ready to fight. But it doesn’t quite land. The tweet actually says, I’ll dance down the street when he’s selected to go to jail.

And Daniels goes off on this digression about how she knows that people don’t get selected to go to jail. That’s not how it works. But she can’t really unseat this argument, that she’s a political enemy of Donald Trump. So that one kind of sticks, I would say. But there are other moves that Necheles tries to pull that don’t stick.

So unlike the prosecution, which typically used words like adult, adult film, Necheles seems to be taking every chance she can get to say porn, or pornography, or porn star, to make it sound base or dirty. And so when she starts to ask Daniels about actually being in pornography, writing, acting, and directing sex films, she tries to land a punch line, Necheles does. She says, so you have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex appear to be real, right?

As if to say, perhaps this story you have told about entering Trump’s suite in Lake Tahoe and having sex with him was made up.

Just another one of your fictional stories about sex. But Daniels comes back and says, the sex in the films, it’s very much real, just like what happened to me in that room. And so, when you have this kind of combat of a lawyer cross-examining very aggressively and the witness fighting back, you can feel the energy in the room shift as one lands a blow or the other does. But here, Daniels lands one back. And the other issue that I think Susan Necheles runs into is, she tries to draw out disparities from interviews that Daniels gave, particularly to N-TOUCH, very early on once the story was out.

It’s kind of like a tabloid magazine?

But some of the disparities don’t seem to be landing quite like Necheles would want. So she tries to do this complicated thing about where the bodyguard was in the room when Daniels walked into the room, as described in an interview in a magazine. But in that magazine interview, as it turns out, Daniels mentioned that Trump was wearing pajamas. And so, if I’m a juror, I don’t care where the bodyguard is. I’m thinking about, oh, yeah, I remember that Stormy Daniels said now in 2024 that Trump was wearing pajamas.

I’m curious if, as somebody in the room, you felt that the defense was effective in undermining Stormy Daniels’s credibility? Because what I took from the earlier part of our conversation was that Stormy Daniels is in this courtroom on behalf of the prosecution to tell a story that’s uncomfortable and has the kind of details that Donald Trump would be motivated to try to hide. And therefore, this defense strategy is to say, those details about what Trump might want to hide, you can’t trust them. So does this back and forth effectively hurt Stormy Daniels’s credibility, in your estimation?

I don’t think that Stormy Daniels came off as perfectly credible about everything she testified about. There are incidents that were unclear or confusing. There were things she talked about that I found hard to believe, when she, for instance, denied that she had attacked Trump in a tweet or talked about her motivations. But about what prosecutors need, that central story, the story of having had sex with him, we can’t know whether it happened.

But there weren’t that many disparities in these accounts over the years. In terms of things that would make me doubt the story that Daniels was telling, details that don’t add up, those weren’t present. And you don’t have to take my word for that, nor should you. But the judge is in the room. And he says something very, very similar.

What does he say? And why does he say it?

Well, he does it when the defense, again, at the end of the day on Thursday, calls for a mistrial.

With a similar argument as before?

Not only with a similar argument as before, but, like, almost the exact same argument. And I would say that I was astonished to see them do this. But I wasn’t because I’ve covered other trials where Trump is the client. And in those trials, the lawyers, again and again, called for a mistrial.

And what does Judge Marchan say in response to this second effort to seek a mistrial?

Let me say, to this one, he seems a little less patient. He says that after the first mistrial ruling, two days before, he went into his chambers. And he read every decision he had made about the case. He took this moment to reflect on the first decision. And he found that he had, in his own estimation, which is all he has, been fair and not allowed evidence that was prejudicial to Trump into this trial. It could continue. And so he said that again. And then he really almost turned on the defense. And he said that the things that the defense was objecting to were things that the defense had made happen.

He says that in their opening statement, the defense could have taken issue with many elements of the case, about whether there were falsified business records, about any of the other things that prosecutors are saying happened. But instead, he says, they focused their energy on denying that Trump ever had sex with Daniels.

And so that was essentially an invitation to the prosecution to call Stormy Daniels as a witness and have her say from the stand, yes, I had this sexual encounter. The upshot of it is that the judge not only takes the defense to task. But he also just says that he finds Stormy Daniels’s narrative credible. He doesn’t see it as having changed so much from year to year.

Interesting. So in thinking back to our original question here, Jonah, about the idea that putting Stormy Daniels on the stand was risky, I wonder if, by the end of this entire journey, you’re reevaluating that idea because it doesn’t sound like it ended up being super risky. It sounded like it ended up working reasonably well for the prosecution.

Well, let me just assert that it doesn’t really matter what I think. The jury is going to decide this. There’s 12 people. And we can’t know what they’re thinking. But my impression was that, while she was being questioned by the prosecution for the prosecution’s case, Stormy Daniels was a real liability. She was a difficult witness for them.

And the judge said as much. But when the defense cross-examined her, Stormy Daniels became a better witness, in part because their struggles to discredit her may have actually ended up making her story look more credible and stronger. And the reason that matters is because, remember, we said that prosecutors are trying to fill this hole in their case. Well, now, they have. The jury has met Stormy Daniels. They’ve heard her account. They’ve made of it what they will. And now, the sequence of events that prosecutors are trying to line up as they seek prison time for the former President really makes a lot of sense.

It starts with what Stormy Daniels says with sex in a hotel suite in 2006. It picks up years later, as Donald Trump is trying to win an election and, prosecutors say, suppressing negative stories, including Stormy Daniels’s very negative story. And the story that prosecutors are telling ends with Donald Trump orchestrating the falsification of business records to keep that story concealed.

Well, Jonah, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Of course, thanks for having me.

The prosecution’s next major witness will be Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer who arranged for the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen is expected to take the stand on Monday.

Here’s what else you need to know today. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a defiant response to warnings from the United States that it would stop supplying weapons to Israel if Israel invades the Southern Gaza City of Rafah. So far, Israel has carried out a limited incursion into the city where a million civilians are sheltering, but has threatened a full invasion. In a statement, Netanyahu said, quote, “if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

Meanwhile, high level ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been put on hold in part because of anger over Israel’s incursion into Rafah.

A reminder, tomorrow, we’ll be sharing the latest episode of our colleague’s new show, “The Interview” This week on “The Interview,” Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with radio host Charlamagne Tha God about his frustrations with how Americans talk about politics.

If me as a Black man, if I criticize Democrats, then I’m supporting MAGA. But if I criticize, you know, Donald Trump and Republicans, then I’m a Democratic shill. Why can’t I just be a person who deals in nuance?

Today’s episode was produced by Olivia Natt and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Lexie Diao, with help from Paige Cowett, contains original music by Will Reid and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.

• May 17, 2024   •   51:10 The Campus Protesters Explain Themselves
• May 16, 2024   •   30:47 The Make-or-Break Testimony of Michael Cohen
• May 15, 2024   •   27:03 The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System
• May 14, 2024   •   35:20 Voters Want Change. In Our Poll, They See It in Trump.
• May 13, 2024   •   27:46 How Biden Adopted Trump’s Trade War With China
• May 10, 2024   •   27:42 Stormy Daniels Takes the Stand
• May 9, 2024   •   34:42 One Strongman, One Billion Voters, and the Future of India
• May 8, 2024   •   28:28 A Plan to Remake the Middle East
• May 7, 2024   •   27:43 How Changing Ocean Temperatures Could Upend Life on Earth
• May 6, 2024   •   29:23 R.F.K. Jr.’s Battle to Get on the Ballot
• May 3, 2024   •   25:33 The Protesters and the President
• May 2, 2024   •   29:13 Biden Loosens Up on Weed

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Jonah E. Bromwich

Produced by Olivia Natt and Michael Simon Johnson

Edited by Lexie Diao

With Paige Cowett

Original music by Will Reid and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

This episode contains descriptions of an alleged sexual liaison.

What happened when Stormy Daniels took the stand for eight hours in the first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump?

Jonah Bromwich, one of the lead reporters covering the trial for The Times, was in the room.

On today’s episode

Jonah E. Bromwich , who covers criminal justice in New York for The New York Times.

Background reading

In a second day of cross-examination, Stormy Daniels resisted the implication she had tried to shake down Donald J. Trump by selling her story of a sexual liaison.

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Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

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