USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

[SOURCES]
Which of the following phrases best explains MLK’s “check” metaphor in “I Have a Dream?”

(A) Reparations for African Americans in the form of cash

(B) ** True equality for African Americans

(C) Coupons for goods

(D) Bus Boycotts

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -When he constructed the text of his “I Have a Dream” speech, he used the metaphor of a bad check to demonstrate the economic injustice that so many faced. He took a complex problem and translated it into practical pocketbook terminology: “We’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.

Concept note-2: -King’s purpose in using the extended metaphor about the check: To demonstrate that promises were made and not kept, to illustrate that freedom and opportunity should be limitless, and that there is no reason why a country like the U.S. should be “out of” either one.

Concept note-3: -I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.