Rhetorical Analysis Of Malcolm X: The Ballot Or The Bullet

Malcolm X and Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar and Malcolm X were influential men in their own rights. While they lived millennia apart and in extremely dissimilar societies, their lives have several parallels. Pundits and scholars of history concur that both defined and influenced the respective histories of their time and were loved or loathed in equal measure by those that their lives touched. Malcolm X was an African American Muslim minister and human rights, activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a social activist and a widely known leader during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He is most famous for his iconic I Have a Dream speech which was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Dr. King expressed the many ways that African Americans have experienced racial discrimination and afterwards, ends his speech talking about his dream of equality with all races. One of the themes that has the greatest impact on everyone is justice. A quote that shows what he envisioned for all was, “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all God’s children.” (King, 49).

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, 'When will you be satisfied? ' We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” He is saying that nothing is going to get better until discrimination and segregation are eliminated. Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech was a major turning point in American history and represented a firm stand for equal rights. He spoke out to confront the issue of race inequality in the nation. This speech was an influential and historical moment in the fight for equal rights of everyone.

Kings goes on to say how racial equality can not be achieved until “...justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” (King). He deliberately tries to make the audience feel as if racial segregation is both wrong and against basic morals. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech, “I Have a Dream” was the changing point for racism in America. It managed to inspire a generation of blacks to never give up and made thousands of white Americans feel ashamed of their actions. To make the speech effective, King uses all three rhetoric concepts to make his speech stronger.

Because of what he was doing, Walker put his life in danger. Walker speaks with distinctive honesty and passion about the cruelty of slavery. An Christian himself, he signals out white Christians for their double standards in supporting slavery, and society that treated most people of African origin as non-human possessions to be bought, sold or disposed of at will. He debates that, compared with slavery at other times and in other places, slavery in the United States is the most awful in history. Walker begs Black

One of Dr. King’s most famous march was the march on Selma. Dr. King didn’t believe in violence during these strikes. Dr. King practiced non-violent social change which is another reason why his assassination was unjust. During the march on Selma 100 troopers and police attacked the marchers this was known as “Bloody Sunday.” Dr. King did suffer a lot during the civil rights movements, in 1958 a black woman stabbed him. In 1963, Martin Luther King made his most famous speech “I have a dream” which caused a huge impact on the Civil Rights Movements.

All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man.” he uses ethos to show he is qualified to talk about the dangers of racism. He adopts a sympathetic and informative tone for an

“Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past”- Troy Edwards. In To Kill A Mockingbird it gives textual evidence on how racism and justice were used. When African Americans got decremented against, the way we changed that in today’s society is by showing that everyone's equal, everyone has the same right and no race is higher than any other. To Kill A Mockingbird gives multiple examples of how racism was put into action. Tom Robinson was a black man who got accused of raping a white girl.

Foley argues that if rhetoric is persuasive, it also contains elements of violence in her scholarly paper “Of Violence And Rhetoric: An Ethical Aporia.” She believes that rhetoric plays a crucial role in persuasion. For example, she explains that persuasion is like an involuntary force that can compel people against their desires, which acts same as violence in the field of ethical action. In King’s speech, he tried to give his audiences a sense that all African American who are oppressed are victims of American imperial society. “ One hundred years later; the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land,” King tells his audiences that African Americans are not treated equally in the land they are currently living. This quote seems conflictive that citizens of a country themselves feel they are exiled by their homeland.

“Open Letter to The South” is a poem that addresses the issues of not only the racial division in this great country, but it also concentrates on the issues that all working class American’s face, even in today’s society and economy. In the poem, Langston Hughes speaks against the words of Booker T. Washington “Separate as the fingers.” He speaks about how whites and blacks should come together and become one, no matter their birth rights or history. He mentions