Behind the Dream Intro Rhetorical Analysis

Christofer Smith • April 1, 2026 • 798 Words

Prompt

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. cowrote his “I Have a Dream” speech with his close confidant Clarence Jones. In 2011, Clarence Jones and Stuart Connelly published Behind the Dream, a behind-the-scenes account of the weeks leading up to King’s delivery of that speech at the March on Washington. The following passage is an excerpt from the prologue to Behind the Dream. Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Jones makes to achieve his purpose of introducing the reader to the book.

In your response you should do the following:

Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer’s rhetorical choices.
Select and use evidence to develop and support your line of reasoning.
Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

A quarter of a million people, human beings who generally had spent their lives treated as something less, stood shoulder to shoulder across that vast lawn, their hearts beating as one. Hope on the line. When hope was an increasingly scarce resource.

There is no dearth of prose describing the mass of humanity that made its way to the feet of the Great Emancipator2 that day; no metaphor that has slipped through the cracks waiting to be discovered, dusted off, and injected into the discourse a half century on. The March on Washington has been compared to a tsunami, a shockwave, a wall, a living monument, a human mosaic, an outright miracle.

It was all of those things, and if you saw it with your own eyes, it wasn’t hard to write about. With that many people in one place crying out for something so elemental, you don’t have to be Robert Frost to offer some profound eloquence.

Still, I can say to those who know the event only as a steely black-and-white television image, it’s a shame that the colors of that day—the blue sky, the vibrant green life, the golden sun everywhere—are not part of our national memory. There is something heart-wrenching about the widely shown images and film clips of the event that belies the joy of the day. But it could be worse. We could have been marching in an era before cameras and recording devices; then the specifics of the event would eventually fade out of living memory and the world would be left only with the mythology and the text. Text without context, in this case especially, would be quite a loss. One might imagine standing before an audience and reading Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech verbatim, but it is a stretch to believe that any such performance would sow the seeds of change with, as Dr. King put it that day in Washington, the “fierce urgency of now.” The vast crowd, the great speaker, the words that shook the world—it all comes as a package deal. We are truly fortunate to have a record. Yet what the television cameras and radio microphones captured that August day is but a sliver of the vibrancy of the event. When a film adaptation of a beloved novel premieres, the people who say “Oh, but you’ve got to read the book” are inevitably right. The density of the written word makes the flat motion picture a pale artifact in comparison. In a similar fashion, although watching the black-and-white news footage of Dr. King’s historic call to action is stirring to almost everyone who sees it, learning about the work that went into The March and the speech—the discussions and debates behind closed doors—offers a unique context that magnifies the resonance of hearing those famous words “I have a dream” in that phenomenal, inimitable cadence.

If taken together, the images and recordings of Martin make up that “movie” of the 1963 March on Washington in our collective consciousness, and if it’s true, as people often say, that “If you loved the movie, you’ve got to read the book,” Behind the Dream is that book. It is a story not known to the general public or disclosed to participants in The March—or, in fact, to many of its organizers. I acquired private truths and quiet insights during the months leading up to this historic event. For the most part, I’ve kept them to myself. But as this book is published, I will be entering my eighth decade on this Earth, and as I move closer to the final horizon, I realize the time has come to share what I know. The experiences cannot die with me; the full truth is simply too important to history.

Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Jones makes to achieve his purpose of introducing the reader to the book.

Introduction

In his book Behind the Dream, author Clarence Jones employs diction, a comparison, and an analogy to entice the reader into reading his account of the plotting behind the 1963 March on Washington.

Hook and Challenging Preconceptions

Immediately upon the opening sentence, Jones begins to establish the scene of the March on Washington, choosing specific words to highlight the physical aspect of "a quarter of a million people... [standing] shoulder to shoulder across a vast lawn" (Jones 1) as well as the emotional quality of the event, with "their hearts beating as one" when hope was rare (Jones 1). This first paragraph presents the reader with a hook that unfolds in both imagery but also symbolism to place the reader there, in the midst of the March. Jones is aware that his audience, having picked up the book, are likely already familiar, at least briefly, with the March on Washington and the iconic "I Have a Dream" speech by Reverend Martin Luther King, Kr. delivered there. Jones presents this description as a counter to those preconceived understandings, to begin demonstrating that the event was more than what they may have seen: that it was not only the sheer quanitity of people there, but the unison in rallying behind the idea of freedom that defined the event. This idea — that what the audience may already know about the March might be incomplete or surface-level — is exactly what Jones's book aims to address, and what his introduction delves into following this paragraph.

Reframe the Understanding

Jones aligns his focus on a subset of people that he feels comprises much of his audience. He specifically speaks to "those who know the event only as a... television image" (Jones 4), helping to clarify who this book was meant for. He details the vibrancy of the colors painted behind that day, arguing that the black-and-white images circulated of the March on Washington do a disservice "to the joy of the day" (Jones 4), reflecting on the fact that at the minimum, the images were better than no visuals at all before once again returning to the idea that recordings are "but a sliver of the vibrancy of the event" (Jones 4). As an author, Clarence Jones reiterates that the medium of transmission is important, and that the visuals fail to truly capture the experience to signal to his audience what the purpose of his book is. Jones is introducing the reader to his account of that day, and all the details that made the March what it was — details that cameras could not capture, and that microphones could not record. Jones is arguing that to truly relive or understand the experience of that day, you can not rely on the recordings alone, as they each fail to replicate the "vibrancy of the event" (Jones 4). Jones clarifies this to his audience with the comparison of "the density of written word [making] the flat motion picture a pale artifact" (Jones 4), mirroring what his book — his written word — aims to do to the recordings of the 1963 March on Washington. He explains this himself immediately after, asserting that while the recorded version of the "I Have a Dream" speech is a compelling call to action, that "learning about the work that wen into The March and the speech... [offer] a unique context" (Jones 4) that only then may convey the profoundness of the speech.

Call to Keep Reading

The final paragraph of Jones's introductions summarizes all that the preceding passage had argued for. In calling "the images and recordings of Martin... that 'movie'," then "Behind the Dream is that book" (Jones 5) that his analogy in the fourth paragraph had alluded to. This final statement concludes his line of reasoning, plainly stating to the audience in bold, clear language that it is an imperative for the reader to continue reading Jones's account, as it is "that book" (Jones 5) that, as Jones had mentioned prior, will "[make] the flat motion picture a pale artifact" (Jones 4). He ends this introduction with the idea that "the full truth is simply too important to history" (Jones 5), alluding to the idea that this book is the truthful recounting of how the March happened. With the purpose of this introduction being to hook the reader into following through on reading his book, by this sentence's end, Jones has achieved this goal. He has not only cast shade onto the recordings and images of the 1963 March on Washington, labeling them as only a sliver of what the event truly was, but he also elevates his account to the status of the truth. Jones has posed the audience with two excellent reasons to continue reading while also having introduced the key ideas of truth and doing the event justice that the rest of Behind the Dream follows through on.

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