I Have a Dream: Dreams, Hopes, and Plans Quotes

The idea of the American Dream varies from person to person, but it essentially promises that everyone can have a happy, successful, and free life if they're willing to work hard. Linking the dream of racial equality to the overall American dream gives the speech a quality of universality, or relevance to all people. That's pretty generous coming from a minority that was oppressed by the majority.

Here's a reference to the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration (which was written by Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner) isn't a legal document. It's more like America's mission statement. Like most mission statements, it got totally and instantly violated—by the continuation of slavery after the Revolution.

In post-slavery America, a lot of racists justified Jim Crow by suggestion that African Americans and whites could still be equal if they were separated—living in different places, eating at different restaurants, going to different schools, and only marrying within the race. MLK's speech contrasts this with an image of different races being united in brotherhood.

This might be the most famous quote of the speech. The American Dream imagines the country as a meritocracy, or a place where the best and hardest-working people rise to the top. Hence, MLK dreams about character determining success. It's a dream of bringing African Americans into the fold of American values, rather than criticizing America's values.

Martin Luther King, Jr. likes to use metaphor to describe his hopes for the future. Some of the speech's plans for the future are specific, but here he goes for the general; since the context of this speech is a rally with 200,000 people, the non-specific, inspirational, and overarching message is appropriate.