Dr. King and the Topic Sentence

Dr King did not read his speeches; he spoke them.  So when we read them, someone inserted the paragraph breaks.  But Dr. King made it easy.

Dr. King started each chunk of his speech with a main idea, and then he elaborated it.  In written form, his speeches exhibit nearly perfect paragraphs, each beginning with a “topic sentence.”  This pattern is an amazing feat of rhetorical ability.

On Dr King’s Day in 2012, I studied one of his speeches (as is my custom). They are all available to us at http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documents_contents   I chose his April 3, 1968, speech, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.  

This speech’s point sentence was  “Strangely enough…‘…in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy.’ ”

Here’s how the next paragraphs begin:

Now that’s a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up.  [Rest of paragraph illustrates the mess.]

And another reason I’m happy … demands didn’t force them to do it.  [Rest of paragraph: how demands force us to protest nonviolently.]

I can remember … Negroes … scratching where they didn’t itch and laughing when they were not tickled.  [Rest of paragraph: we work toward the opposite of that unnatural behavior.]

Now what does this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together.  [Rest of paragraph: how staying together foils white power.]

Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice.  [Rest of paragraph: injustice.]

When I write paragraphs, I try to announce a topic sentence and then support it.  To do so reliably, I must work retrospectively.  I draft the document first; then I go back and relocate or add the topic sentences. 

Dr. King, on the other hand, did so many things brilliantly.  He told moving stories.  He verbally embraced and emboldened his audience.  He told the truth, but always in love.  And, intellectually, his speeches could announce a topic, and support it, and move smoothly to the next. 

He made it seem easy.

Each time he spoke, he built, in the air between him and his audience, a structure so perfect it can still instruct us today.