Martin Luther King Jr.: Pioneer Of The Civil Rights Movement

Words: 1861
Pages: 8

Introduction

As the awakening of equal human rights, civil rights campaigns sprung up in America in the last century. One of the pioneers of the movements was Martin Luther King Jr, an American Baptist minister, whose famous public speech I have a dream persuaded American citizens to participate in civil right movement and defend for the Black. It was regarded as the most inspiring American speech of the 20th century by an investigation of scholars on public addresses in 1999 (Stringer & Brumfield, 2006).

The reason why I have a dream is so important and meaningful in the history of human rights movement can be explained as its artful use of signs. According to the Sign-Mediated Communication(SMC) model, signs serve as the reinforcement in the process of conveying the intentional information. The paper will initially categorize the signs into three sections: geographical signs, temporal signs, and biblical signs, and followed by the analysis of them, using SMC model. The final part will conclude the discussions of the article.

Geographical signs
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Children are regarded as the future of the country. Martin Luther King Jr used his four children to represent the next generation of Americans, who stand for the hope and improvement. In addition, Martin Luther King Jr’s four children are all blacks. They were the representatives of the large number of unprivileged black children who were judged unfairly. By using this sign, Martin Luther King Jr tended to regard himself as a normal father of four black children, rather than a political leader. This exchange of identity was able to enhance audience's emotional interaction. Apparently, he expressed his pure hope that his children can be judged fairly in the future. However, his real goal was to arouse public’s resonance to participate in the movement to create a fair environment for the next generation of America, especially for the black