Given how strongly he feels about the strike, Dr. King leaves no rhetorical tools on the table, and we're betting if you dig in, you'll be able to find examples of logos, pathos, and ethos—the rhetorical Triple Crown. That said, the dominant mode of the speech is…drum roll, please…

Ethos.

"Now, wait just a minute," you might be thinking. "Surely it's pathos. Isn't this speech all about having sympathy for the sanitation workers?" And, yeah, that's true: the message of this speech is compassion. Check it out:

God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here and His children who can't eat three square meals a day. (21.7)

We hear ya—that's pretty compassionate. But you'll notice what's not in this speech: the kind of personal stories we hear all the time in political rhetoric when politicians are trying to convince us to support a policy by appealing to our emotions.

(It's not that Dr. King didn't know how to use pathos in his speeches and writings. For a stellar, tear-jerking example, check out his his "Letter From Birmingham Jail.")

But here's what Dr. K doesn't say in his Mountaintop speech:

"Now, these sanitation workers are doing their best to make a living, just like you and me. They get up early every morning to make Memphis a clean, beautiful city that its residents can be proud of. And yet, despite this dedication to hard work, they're still suffering. Take the Johnson family, for instance. [Gestures to the Johnson family: Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, their three children, all dressed in their Sunday best.] Mr. Johnson has not missed a single day of work in five years on the job, but the members of this family have to take turns eating each night because there's not enough food to go around…."

Now, King does acknowledge the difficulties of the sanitation workers: "[…] up to now only the garbage men have been feeling pain. Now we must kind of redistribute that pain" (24.6–7). But nowhere does he wallow in their pain; it's just an accepted fact. This is actually the only place in the speech he uses the word "pain"; he uses "hurt" a few times, but not with reference to the workers.

The thing is, many of the people in the audience that night were sanitation workers, so they didn't need to hear all the gory details of what they were going through. The question Dr. King asks instead is, first, what do we do? And then, maybe even more importantly, why do we do it?

Well, Since You Asked

Why? There are a couple of answers.

One of them is definitely among your favorites: "Because I said so." Dr. K doesn't actually say that, either, because he doesn't have to. Everyone already knows he's important. It's true that MLK wasn't everyone's most favorite person, which you'll see if you Shmoop on over to our "Compare and Contrast" section. But he was a widely revered figure in the Civil Rights Movement, as he reminds the audience when he reminisces about his career (17–18; 36–42).

Y'know, just in case they've forgotten.

But Dr. King doesn't allow this speech to rest on his own reputation. No, he's got a serious ethos-based trick up his sleeve: he implies that, by following his example, people will also be following Jesus' example.

This is why he tells the story of the Good Samaritan (27–30), which is the heart of his case for helping the sanitation workers. He wants to remind the audience that what he's asking them to do is the same as what Jesus asked people to do: "[W]hen we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school, be there. Be concerned about your brother" (26.4–6). In case it's slipped their minds, King tells the audience who their "brother" is by alluding to what Jesus said when someone asked him, "Who is my neighbor?" (27.1–4). (Hint: it's everyone.)

By aligning himself with Jesus, King turns the question of ethos back on the audience:

"I, Martin Luther King, Jr., stand before you not just as some Important Person who commands respect, but as a follower of Jesus. So whatever you think of my ideas is also what you think of Jesus' ideas. Agree with me and you agree with Jesus; disagree with me and you disagree with Jesus. Now, ask yourselves: if I'm a Christian, do I really want to disagree with Jesus?"

What a Character

Ethos is all about what the audience thinks about the character of the speaker—if he or she is wise, trustworthy, compassionate, etc. With the story of the Good Samaritan, Dr. King tosses that question back to the audience, showing them that what they think of him tells them whether or not they're living up to their own moral standards. Whether or not they're wise, trustworthy, and compassionate. Whether or not they're being hypocrites. They can't judge King without judging themselves.

Checkmate.

We can also see why King is more focused on ethos than pathos: feeling compassion is a good thing, but acting compassionately is our duty to our neighbor whether we're feeling it or not. Especially if we're not. And wanting to be a dutiful person is largely about evaluating our own credibility, which is an ethos thing. Do you really want to be out of the loop—on the proverbial "wrong side of history"?

Didn't think so.

And Dr. K asks a similar question about the United States as a whole: what kind of country do we want to be? "All we say to America is to be true to what you said on paper," he says, referring to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution/Bill of Rights (19.5). "[L]et us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation" (31.3–4).

As King has urged his audience not to be hypocrites themselves, he calls all of them to join together to correct the hypocrisies of the nation—to repair its ethos, long compromised in the eyes of its downtrodden citizens and the world.