More Resources

Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream

Read I Have a Dream and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

1. Where is King giving this speech?

at a motel in Selma, Alabama

at Arlington National Cemetery

in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial

in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

2. What does King mean when he says, “We have come . . . to cash a check”?

Blacks, as slaves, were never paid for helping to build this great country.

The Declaration of Independence was a promissory note to all Americans, including blacks.

Blacks will wait, but the “bank” of American promises is running out of cash.

Whites should expect a bloody revolution if they do not pay their debt.

3. King encourages blacks to meet physical force with

physical force.

soul force.

no force whatsoever.

financial force.

4. Why does King encourage his followers not to distrust all whites?

Many whites have come to recognize that the futures of both blacks and whites are linked.

Blacks must recognize that they are, no matter what, outnumbered by whites.

Most whites are simply misguided.

Only a few whites are really culpable for the “appalling condition” of the Negro.

5. From what source does King get the phrase “Free at last”?

a poem by Walt Whitman

The Declaration of Independence

an old Negro spiritual

King’s own words