What tone does Martin Luther King, Jr. create through his choice of words in
the following portion of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech?
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22
million Negroes of the United States of America are
engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial
injustice, I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights
movement which is moving with determination and a
majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of
freedom and a rule of justice. I am mindful that only
yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out
for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling
dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in
Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure
the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only
yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of
Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they
offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept
segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding
poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest
rung of the economic ladder.
A. Questioning
B. Excited
C. Serious
D. Playful
O