In 1963, 4 young black girls were killed in a church bombing fueled by the racism and hatred that filled that time. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Eulogy for Martyred Children, given at their joined funeral, not only honors the girls in their death, but also provides an argument for why the nonviolent fight for civil rights must continue and grow. Within this argument, he talks about the racist white men, in order to provide insight to the reasons these hate crimes are committed, and how that means that it is ever more important to continue working toward equality. One of the bigger focuses though, is on how the idealisms and ways in which these men were raised are to blame, not the individuals. From the outset of the eulogy, racist white men are …show more content…
Each of the groups help to paint a picture of what type of people he is referring to, as well as offer insight to how he feels about them. He calls first of these groups "every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained glass windows." While this group wasn't exclusively white men, it certainly featured them in an extremely high percentage. His use of alliteration in the words silent, safe, security, and stained helps focus the audience's attention on what the men are doing, or rather failing to do, as opposed to shaming the people themselves. The next group follows the same sort of pattern. He speaks of "every politician that has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism." While this does point out that these men are encouraging these behaviors, the emphasis is put on the metaphors in this section. Instead of describing the men as stale and spoiled, he describes the idealisms as such, much like he did for the first group. The same goes for the next group, for which he describes the "federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern dixiecrats and the blatant hypocrisy of
On August 28, 1955, fourteen year old Emmett Till was beaten, tortured and shot. Then with barbed wire wrapped around his neck and tied to a large fan, his body was discarded into the Tallahatchi River. What was young Emmett’s offense that brought on this heinous reaction of two grown white men? When he went into a store to buy some bubblegum he allegedly whistled at a white female store clerk, who happened to be the store owner’s wife. That is the story of the end of Emmett Till’s life. Lynchings, beatings and cross-burning had been happening in the United States for years. But it was not until this young boy suffered an appalling murder in Mississippi that the eyes of a nation were irrevocably opened to the ongoing horrors of racism in the South. It sparked the beginning of a flourish of both national and international media coverage of the Civil Rights violations in America.
Throughout his preface of the book titled Why We Can’t Wait, which entails the unfair social conditions of faultless African Americans, Martin Luther King employs a sympathetic allegory, knowledge of the kids, and a change in tone to prevail the imposed injustice that is deeply rooted in the society—one founded on an “all men are created equal” basis—and to evoke America to take action.
The “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” is a text directed to all of America in 1963, written by Martin Luther King Jr., during his stay in one of the of Birmingham’s prisons. His intention of writing an open letter was to tell the world the injustice “the white people” had done not only to him, but to all Afro-Americans. The main stimulus was a statement made by a Clergymen naming the actions and the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as unwise and untimely. However, the purpose of this letter is to show that those actions are totally wise and timely.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the leader of a peaceful movement to end segregation in the United States this mission led him in 1963 to Birmingham, Alabama where officials and leaders in the community actively fought against desegregation. While performing sit-ins, marches and other nonviolent protests, King was imprisoned by authorities for violating the strict segregation laws. While imprisoned King wrote a letter entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, in which he expresses his disappointment in the clergy, officials, and people of Birmingham. This letter employed pathos to argue that the leaders and ‘heroes’ in Birmingham during the struggle were at fault or went against their beliefs.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” while most appropriately described as a response to criticism, is not written from a defensive position. While his letter more than aptly provides a functional defense of his actions at Birmingham, it serves more so as a counter-critical rebuttal that both repudiates criticisms of his deeds, and criticizes the reasoning behind said criticisms. Dr. King uses the very denunciative tools used against him, such as assertions of premature action and aggressiveness, as both defense and offense, effectively dismissing any wrong on his part, and elucidating the myopic nature of the white moderates’ reticence. What makes his criticism particularly powerful, besides its solid reasoning, and open publication, is the medium between his logic and the receptivity of his audience: his rhetoric. In his letter, King addresses the accusations of civil disobedience and extremism, and his being encouraged to submit to quietism, but the manner in which these facets are presented by the opposition, distort King’s actual position, proving to be the greatest threat to King’s efforts. King’s ability to overcome these obstacles was not through the use of logic alone, but through the use of rhetorical delivery.
This paper will discuss the different stages of thought processes the former Nation of Islam minister, Malcolm X went through during his lifetime in terms of how he viewed white people, but more specifically “the white man” in America. The reason the focus is on White Americans is because these were the people outside of the Nation of Islam that shaped his life good or bad and put him on the path where he eventually transformed from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X who was one of the most polarizing and controversial figures during his lifetime and even nearly 50 years after his death the name Malcolm X causes certain people to shudder. Malcolm X became a well-known figure during the 50’s and 60’s during the civil rights movement which involved figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. This was a pivotal era in American history because for the first time that there was major push towards full rights for African Americans. When Malcolm X came on the scene he put fear into White people because they weren’t used to hearing the truth about race relations in America and many of them felt that things were just fine because they themselves were living life high on the hog while at the same time exploiting Blacks. Because this type of talk from a black person was new to them they misinterpreted his views as “hate speech” and accused him of trying to incite violence when he was simply trying wake his people up to properly deal with what was happening to them.
Before the civil rights movement gained momentum around 1955, the African-American community was looked upon by many as a group of second-class citizens who were undeserving of rights enjoyed by white Americans. This started to change when men like Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) stood up for the cause and fought back against segregation. He was a man from humble beginnings and who dealt with racism and hatred from a young age, all of which shaped his activism. Malcolm, after his death, was recognized as one of the most important people of the 20th century by TIME Magazine. He watched from a young age as white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) terrorized African-Americans by lynching and torturing them because of their skin color (“Malcolm X”). This among many other racists acts witnessed by Malcolm shaped his philosophical and political views. Malcolm was a controversial figure because he initially supported a violent revolution against whites, but he had many supporters in the African-American community. One of them was Manning Marable, who wrote a biography about Malcolm, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, in 2011. This book brings Malcolm’s story to life through research of his experiences and interviews with his close family and friends. Michiko Kakutani, a New York Times book critic, emphasizes in her review that though the biography is not as intense in details and philosophical views as is Malcolm X’s own autobiography, Marable “manages to situate Malcolm X within the context of 20th-century racial politics in America without losing focus on his...
African Americans were becoming dissatisfied with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s approach to the Civil Rights Movement. Some African Americans argue “that turning the cheek” was no longer an option for them. Others believed that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a dreamer and a farce and sleeping with the archenemy. The FBI had wage a campaign against King;” the FBI went so far as to send King a tape recording of one of his supposed tryst and a letter encouraging him to take his own life” (Martin Luther King, Jr We Remember (Wolfson, A & Moynihan, D.P. (2003). Page
From the summer of 1979 to the summer of 1981, at least twenty-eight people were abducted and killed during a murder spree in Atlanta, Georgia; these killings would come to be known as the Atlanta Child Murders. While the victims of the killings were people of all races and genders, most of the victims of the Atlanta Child Murders were young African-American males. These murders created great racial tension in the city of Atlanta, with its black population believing the murders to be the work of a white supremacist group. (Bardsley & Bell, n.d., p. l) However, when police finally apprehended a suspect in the case, they found it was neither a white supremacy group, nor a white person at all; it was a 23 year-old African-American man named Wayne Williams. (“What are”, n.d.)
The purpose of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s was for blacks to achieve rights equal to those of whites. While this was the common goal, there were differences in the methods used to achieve them—the nonviolent and violent approach. People such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated for the use of nonviolence. On the other hand, people such as Stokely Carmichael supported the use of violence to achieve these aforementioned goals. While the ideas behind Carmichael’s interpretation of Black Power—such as unity and self-pride—are essential, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent approach is most effective for the task.
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Eyes on the Prize characterize life for African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s as full of tension, fear, and violence. Eyes on the Prize is a documentary series that details major figures and events of the movement, while Anne Moody gives a deeply personal autobiographical account of her own experiences as an African American growing up in deeply segregated and racist Mississippi and as a civil rights activist during and after college. These two accounts are very different in their style yet contain countless connections in their events and reflect many ongoing struggles of the movement. These sources provide an excellent basis for discussion of nonviolence versus violence
Remarks by President Obama at the eulogy for the honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney; A man who was killed when an another man rushed into a church in South Carolina and killed 9 people while they were immersed in an afternoon mass. President Obama created different appeals and feelings through the use of different Rhetorical Devices such as Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. The use of logos ethos and pathos help the president convey his central idea which is to ensure the people of South Carolina and the people of the United States that not only are they safe, but they will unite to take this opportunity to create a more united U.S. This will happen through the establishment of new gun reforms.
Recently you have received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Dr. King’s letter he illustrates the motives and reasoning for the extremist action of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960’s. In the course of Dr. King’s letter to you, he uses rhetorical questioning and logistical reasoning, imagery and metaphors, and many other rhetorical devices to broaden your perspectives. I am writing this analysis in hopes you might reconsider the current stance you have taken up regarding the issues at hand.
On the third Monday in January, we celebrate a man who helped change the course of history in the way people treat others who are different than them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American clergyman and civil rights leader for who was made famous by the glorious speech “I Have a Dream”. (Norton 1152) In this speech, he spoke of a future where Caucasians and African Americans would no longer be segregated and to not be judged by the color of our skin but to be known together as equal. During his speech, whether he did it purposely or accidently, he used rhetorical devices to help deliver his message to his audience. In the speech, Dr. King used ethos, logos, and pathos to appeal to his audience in an ethical, logical and emotional
Are heroes important? This is the question that Scott LaBarge, a philosophy professor at Santa Clara University, tackles in his article “Heroism: Why Heroes are Important.” He encourages teachers, parents, and students to realize that heroes are tremendously significant in society by using references to factual and historical details, personal association, and various examples of different types of heroes. LaBarge effectively uses the rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos, and kairos to convince his audience that heroes are important.