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Over the centuries there have been so many great men who have made so many great speeches. One of if not the most iconic speeches is Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Another speech that may not be as significant but still important is Senator Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’. These speeches have a lot of similarities and differences including their speech crafting devices, unique African American heritages and the importance they have, and the Christian content. These three things help to convey the central message of unity vital to each of the speeches.
One thing that both speeches shared was the careful and deliberate use of repetition. Dr. King utilized the repetition of the phrase ‘Now is the time’ to evoke a sense of urgency in those who were present at the Lincoln Memorial including those watching as it was televised. It was a time of transition in our country, where blacks were declared free from slavery but were not truly free. When Sen. Obama gave his speech in 2008, he was able to inspire the remembrance of Dr. King’s speech, saying, ‘To continue the long march of those who came before us,’ and going on to repeat the word ‘more’ in reference to the work we still have to do.
Not only did they use repetition at the beginning of their speeches, but also toward the end. To be able to provide a sense of hope and unity at the close of his speech, Dr. King emphasized that for America to be great we need to let freedom ring across our nation. Alternately before closing his speech with a personal story, Sen. Obama then repeated the phrase ‘this time’ to pull people back from all the distractions as well as conflicts political campaigns bring up and turn their focus on the real problems facing the majority of our country.
Even though both were African Americans, Dr. King and Sen. Obama had drastically different childhoods which gave them each a unique point of view in their speeches. Although both were raised in Christian households, their religious upbringings were different. Dr. King was the fourth generation of Baptist preachers and was raised in a household that was heavily dedicated to the faith. Despite being raised in a Christian home, Dr. King experienced a crisis of faith and troubling depression (Wikipedia). He eventually was able to bring his doubts to the faith he was raised in, entering the seminary and deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps. He was also raised in a time when racial segregation was very normal and racism was openly expressed. When he urged his fellows to ‘meet physical force with soul force,’ he was encouraging them to be an example that others could follow. With all he had experienced, he had come to the wisdom that to overcome evil, you must consistently be good.
Sen. Obama however, spent his former years both in the United States, with a casual Christian influence, as well as in Indonesia, where he was with a strong Muslim influence, providing him with a multicultural and very diverse perspective. He did not suffer racism to the same extent Dr. King did, except that just by being darker skinned in America, he became vulnerable to the same struggles of African Americans. But more than that, he married a black American woman who ‘carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners’ which brought that heritage into his family line and allowed him to have yet another perspective. Unlike Dr. King, Obama also had to learn to reconcile the racism uttered by his white grandmother with the knowledge that she ‘loves me as much as she loves anything in this world’. He came to understand that ‘these people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love’. Despite their wildly different upbringings, both Dr. King and Sen. Obama were able to reach the same belief and hope for unity.
Dr. King and Sen. Obama both drew on their Christian faith in their speeches. When asked if his ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech was about religion, Sen. Obama said, ‘There’s a sense that if we are to get beyond our racial divides, that it should be neat and pretty, whereas part of my argument was that it’s going to be hard and messy—and that’s where faith comes in’ (in Newsweek). Although he seemed unwilling to admit that his Christian faith heavily influenced his speech, there is one reference in particular, ‘a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people’. Sen. Obama made it clear that to serve this country in such a manner as to overcome those things that were still flawed and bring it together, he felt compelled to seek because of his faith in God.
Dr. King was far bolder in his use of faith in his speech. We are all God’s children is the theme of Dr. King’s speech. He rightfully saw slavery and the continued segregation of human beings to be an insult to God’s will for mankind and expressed hope to be able to see ‘the glory of the Lord … revealed’ to all people together. Faith was so important that he concluded his speech with the ‘old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! thank God almighty, we are free at last!’’.
The purpose of both speeches was to bring together people of all colors, to drive out hatred and prejudice, and to encourage every person to work together so that our country could be a better place. ‘With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood,’ Dr. King said in his famous speech. That dream was not yet completely realized when Sen. Obama spoke in 2008, but he did give an admission of progress. ‘This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected’.
Though their speeches were forty-five years apart and under very different circumstances, these points display how they both chose to utilize repetition and even aspects from their backgrounds and faith to create speeches that delivered a message of hope and unity. Dr. King, a black man who endowed a world that had not yet fully overcome discrimination and slavery, and Obama, the son of a black man and a white woman, who was raised in a world where diversity was spread all around, both communicated the same message in different times and with different words.
Works Cited
- Miller, Lisa ‘Cover Story: Barack Obama’s Christian Journey.’ Newsweek. 11 July 2008. https://www.newsweek.com/cover-story-barack-obamas-christian-journey-92611 Accessed 14 Nov. 2019.
- Obama, Barack ‘A More Perfect Union.’ Constitution Center, Philadelphia. 18 Mar. 2008. National Public Radio. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.
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