Question

Which phrase from Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream (Links to an external site.)” speech contains the strongest emotional connotations?
Group of answer choices

“the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty”

“the long night of their captivity”

“one hundred years later”

“and so we've come here today to dramatize”

Answer 1

The answer is A. "The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty".

If you want the short answer: I had the same question on my test.

If you want the long answer:

By using this sentence, we are provided with vivid imagery of black American citizens being isolated from the rest of America due to their skin color and the poverty caused by their skin color.

Black American citizens were, at the time, and still sadly sometimes viewed the same today, as a low society. They were separated from white American citizens, deemed unfit and unqualified for proper work, thus many lived in poverty.

This served as a separation between white American citizens and black American citizens, thus it felt as if black people lived on a separate, lonely island accompanied by nothing only than poverty.

Answer 2

“The long night of their captivity”

(Though I always thought “I have been to the Mountaintop” part very emotional)

Explanation: