Final answer:
In Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech, he explicitly mentions states such as Mississippi and Alabama to highlight areas suffering from racial injustice and to signify a national movement for civil rights.
Step-by-step explanation:
In his most famous address, the "I Have a Dream" speech given during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned several U.S. states, portraying them as parts of a nation fraught with racial injustice but bound for integration and equality. In particular, King referenced the state of Mississippi, a place 'sweltering with the heat of injustice', as well as Alabama with its 'vicious racists', implicitly calling for change across the United States. These references underlined the national scope of the civil rights struggle, reaching beyond the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the entirety of the nation.