With one eyebrow raised and a big “huh?…”, I responded to the assignment to write a response paper on I Have a Dream speech–reflecting on its content and impact, as well as its excellence on utilizing elements of speech and techniques. I had no idea what I Have a Dream speech was, though I had heard of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and always wondered why we must use the “Jr” behind his name and what happened when the “Jr” was dropped.
This was the last term of my freshman year when I sat in “Speaking about the World” class–a required oral communication course at Goshen College. I went through my K-12 education outside of the United States and barely got the exposure of the civil rights movement history, let alone listened to I Have a Dream. I quickly realized how much contextualization in teaching and learning is highly crucial and valuable.
So, I headed to the library basement to check out the reserved I Have a Dream tape and sat down there and listened for the first time… and I listened for the second time… and repeated multiple times. I had to pause and rewind occasionally to understand what he was saying. I struggled to understand this speech linguistically (Dr. King’s accent and style were foreign for my ears at the time) and contextually (the metaphors did not make sense to me). I kept asking why did Professor Sue Conrad wanted me to write a paper based on this speech? She had told us that Dr. King visited our campus before he died–which made me even more curious… Why was it a big deal and historical that he came to this Northern Indiana campus? Why the Mennonites admired him so much and identified themselves with him?
After 3 hours spent in the library basement, I could not come up with a concise write-up on why this was a good speech from oral communication theory perspective, other than the fact that he had a big voice, he paused, he repeated things, and he sounded charismatic. Today, I found the perfect clip, a visual map of Dr. King’s speech by Nancy Duarte, that I wish existed back then. It would have helped me write and perhaps given me a shot for an “A” for this paper…
I recognized there were some parallels between the dreams and my personal experience. Growing up in a country whose slogan is “Unity in Diversity”, yet in reality marred with daily ethnic and religious discrimination, and left the country after a big ethnic riot that killed at least 300 people in one day, I thought I got it… It was all about equality to all people regardless of ethnicity, faith, and other boxes. Of course.
As I listened to I Have a Dream once more, I was reminded that Dr. King’s call was more than just for equality.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called us to love impartially and to reclaim freedom for all humanity with a deep commitment to non-violence until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
travel more work less . culinary explorer . petite . geek . restless . eclectic .
