Samuel Hernandez

Period 6

April 15, 2010

AP Lang. and Comp.

Mata

Rhetorical Précis: MLK

In his speech, “I’ve been to the mountaintop” (1968), Martin Luther King Jr. proclaims “be with

us when we go out on Monday” (21) to help the fight for equality in Memphis. King validates this

declaration by contrasting philosophies of Malcolm ‘X’ (“no longer a choice between violence and non-

violence”) with those of his successful encounters (“we are masters in our nonviolence”), by

exemplifying the differences in the extreme philosophies (“bricks and bottles”) with his peaceful, more

conservative philosophies (“protests for right”), and by revealing the similarities to the intensions in the

extreme philosophies (“determined to gain our rightful place”) with his own intentions (“strengthen our

black institutions”). He alludes to these differences in order to encourage the workers to stay unified

under a common goal to gain the justice owed to them; with this, King implies that those who do not

“give ourselves to the struggle” will be “more tragic to stop” (31) indicating that those who do not

commit to the struggle are not helping in gaining equality in Memphis. King directly addresses the

sanitation workers in his speech by proclaiming to them the primary goal and the necessity of their unity

(“I call upon you…”) and graciously offers them support and guidance (“we need all of you”); but, by

creating a strong motivational push in towards the direction of equality, King speaks stating that “We’ve

got to stay together and maintain unity” (16), reassuring them of the importance of unity as a major

factor towards gaining equality in the city of Memphis.