Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered passionate speeches that effectively used ethos, pathos, and logos to appeal to his audience, resulting in emotionally compelling speeches that urged listeners to reshape the current racial landscape of America. This speech is one of the most emotionally compelling, and it is full of examples that listeners would find "emotional." Here are a few that really stand out to me:

But 100 years later the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.

In this section, the use of anaphora (repeating the phrase one hundred at the beginning of successive sentences) stresses the length of time that has passed since the promises of the Emancipation Proclamation. It shows how long African Americans have been waiting to fulfill their own dreams and how their life contrasts with the "material prosperity" they find all round them. King goes on to state that an African American feels "exile[d] in his own land," further showing the inherent injustice in the current racial divide in America.

We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

In this section of the speech, King shows the various forms of discrimination which are commonplace to African Americans at this moment in history. They face the inability to rest while traveling. Their children are unable to enter various places of business because of the pigmentation of their skin. There are places where the right to vote is impeded. King urges listeners to believe that justice is coming and uses a simile (like waters) to further illustrate this point.

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 the content of their character.

This is one of the most memorable lines from the speech and really sums up the vision in a single sentence. King uses the illustration of children (and his own children, at that) to sway listeners to believe in a nation that will judge a person by his character—not by skin color. Using children in this example highlights the innocence of the youngest members of society—and shows that maybe with a collective effort, these children will fall heir to a better America.