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History essay the civil rights movement
History essay the civil rights movement
The US civil rights movement
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In the 1960’s America was divided over the voting rights of African Americans. It was a time of racial and political unrest as president Lyndon B. Johnson encouraged Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. On March 16, 1965 “We Shall Overcome” was delivered to congress. Lyndon B. Johnson was elected vice president of the United States in 1960 and became the 36th president in 1963. Throughout his speech Johnson uses a variety of strategies to persuade the nation that African Americans have the right to vote. Some of these strategies include ethos, logos, and pathos. Johnson’s specific audience is the members of congress but there is an implied audience of every American. Johnson starts his speech by saying “I speak tonight for the dignity of …show more content…
He mentions the very recent violence that occurred in Selma, Alabama; where African Americans were attacked by police while preparing to march to Montgomery to protest voting rights discrimination. Without mentioning this violent event that occurred a week prior, there would not be much timeliness to his argument, and it wouldn’t have been as effective. The timeliness of his argument gave the speech a lot more meaning, and it heightened the emotions of many who heard the address. He is appealing to the emotions of many American people, both Congressmen and ordinary citizens, to encourage them to support his cause. He reminds us of all of the Americans around the world that are risking their lives for our freedom. He refers to them as “guardians of our liberty.” He also address the problem as the whole nation should be concerned not just the north, the south, or the African American …show more content…
This also broke many contextual constraints in that he was considering himself as a part of the people of the United States. He also uses examples of registrars being extremely unfair towards the African Americans when they applied to vote. He mentions how they found any excuse to not let an African American vote such as someone not spelling out their middle name on the application if they abbreviated a word. Sometimes registrars would make African Americans recite the whole constitution. He states, “Even a college degree couldn’t be used to prove that one could read or write.” He used these examples in his speech so that whites could see the truth about the wrong doings towards people of color. He wants these unjust acts to emotionally capture the hearts of America. Johnson also uses other examples of pathos throughout his speech to reach out to the hearts of the American people. He states many times that he believes that Americans can change the future not only for us but also for all generations to come. Johnson implied that it was a general feeling of American citizens that something needed to be done about the current situation of voting rights for African Americans. This adds to the pathos in the speech because he includes his own emotions in the general emotions of the public. Near the middle of his speech Johnson enhance his argument through the audiences
...etorical analysis teaches that the practice of rhetoric in pathos is not always strong enough to stand alone or solely support an argument. Many times pathos is contingent on emotions that are not supported by anything but the speaker alone. Therefore, like President Johnson’s speech, it is important to stick to a genre since it offers enough structure to validate the pathos illustrated. The deliberative genre provides a speech that evokes a serious setting where the speaker can be taken seriously and with a sense of urgency. The combination of pathos and genre can be a model for a successful pair of rhetorical features explained through my rhetorical analysis of Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1963 acceptance speech. In this speech he was able to address the devastating loss and mourning of JFK, while all the same maintaining an outlook of perseverance of the American people.
What he was claiming was that African Americans slaves were born in the United States so they should be entitled to same American values given to the white Americans. He also goes ahead to bash the government for the attitudes towards his people and goes on to explain how he feels they are be exploited. His impact that he intended to have from this speech had been to bring freedom to African American’s by letting proper democratic ideals decide who is entitled to what rights. During the time of the speech he said black American’s should be ashamed to celebrate this holiday due to the misdeeds and unfair enforcement of these laws. His main take away from this was that the slavery going on in America was harmful and illegal because they violated the founding father principle rights. Throughout him speaking he goes on to undercut many powerful institutions in America that are simply letting slavery go on and not doing anything about it (Church). He is a very faithful man and believes looking back at his sentiments will ring home and show that he was inevitably correct in due time. In conclusion this ties to the ideas that African Americans should not have to celebrate this holiday until they feel like they are being equally treated under the same law are the white
because he request to the audience that we must unite together to bring change in a society.
He talks about how the emancipation is very important to us African Americans, but to other white people it was just a speech because it did not really involve them, so they really just did not care because it was not their history. As Americans, I feel we share the same history because it was just not the blacks that got everything passed for them, but it was also the whites because we all played a separate part with it. When issues like this come up I just look back on the elections of my president Obama. Every one said that us as African Americans we got him into office both times, but if the whole black population would of voted just for Obama he would not have won.... ...
He implements this emotional appeal into his speech to involve all Americans—people living in the United States of America, regardless of their ethnicity, race, or culture, and to acknowledge that the American people have endured this together, and that they will continue to advance after this event with stronger resolve, stronger than ever. In addition, he implements personification to motivate and empower the American people. “Our nation, this generation, will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future” (Bush, 2001). “This generation”, again a synonym for the American people, with its unwavering resolve, will fight for its freedom persistently. He intimates that the future of America and of democratic freedom is in the hands of the American people; that the American people have the power to control their fate.
This book follows Johnsons political career, from a eager hard-working congressional secretary to the landslide victor of the 1964 presidential election. It discusses his "liberal" political views, It seems as though Johnson thought he could help the American people single-handedly and he seemed determined to do it. Johnson is He is praised for his vast legislative record and his stand on poverty and eventually, civil rights. He is criticized for his methods and
Judgment Days chronicles how Johnson and King seemed fated to lead the collapse of America's segregation views. The reader is first introduced to Johnson, the master politician soon after President Kennedy’s catastrophic assassination. Kotz shows how LBJ makes his way through this crisis to seize the moment and take the reins of the nation. He then focuses on the agony King and his family felt upon hearing the news of Kennedy's premature death. Abruptly, Kotz shifts back in time to study the early lives of the two crucial figures and provides a broad perspective of the civil rights movement and the complex relationship between Johnson and King and how these two individuals were swept up in a time of monumental change. These astounding men were complete opposites tied only by their experience with southern culture and their need to help those who were on the margins of society in regard to wealth and opportunity. Their relationship was complex and difficult for many to understand, a fragile mix of professionalism and interdependence. This relationship would help to proliferate one of the greatest movements of social change in U.S. history.
Johnson uses allusion to show that the government has failed to honor their promises and also to show that Americans have fought for their rights. Johnson uses an allusion to the president’s
He speaks to all the citizens of the nation and specifically to the members of the Congress. The purpose of the speech is to pass the Voting Rights Act, mainly for African Americans, to create greater equality in our society. He mentioned the incident in Selma, Alabama, and he stated, “One good man, a man of God, was killed” (Johnson 1). He explained the situation and gave many other statements about the amount of hatred that was still around at the time.
As one of the most proficient civil rights activist of the 1960's, Malcolm X and his speeches were very influential but particularly one speech was highly esteemed, that being the Ballot or the Bullet speech. A speech that was given after the "I have A Dream speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. Despite, Dr. Martin Luther King being a pacifist and also a civil rights activist as well; Malcolm X was more tyrannical and advocated the use of violence. During this era, the democrats were in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, therefore both the Senate and the House of Representatives were leaning towards providing more civil rights to African-Americans. The purpose of Malcolm X’s speech was to convince African Americans to become more politically aware and to vote members of their own race into office. The year 1964 is known for civil rights activists, racist groups, and political strife. In order to achieve this goal and increase the speeches effectiveness, X utilizes a variety of rhetorical strategies within his speech.
In the poem, he mentions black people that were treated unfairly and how many of those people are not recognized as much. He powerfully wrote: “Names lost. Know too many Trayvon Martins / Oscar Grants / and Abner Louimas, know too many / Sean Bells, and Amadou Diallos / Know too well that we are the hard-boiled sons of Emmett Till” (Lines 53-60). This quote shows how many of our black people are discriminated by their skin color are mistreated. Abner Louimas, Sean Bells and Amadou Diallos were men that were victims of police brutality and were shot several times by police officers. Specifically, Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin’s deaths were great examples as to how people were and still are racist. To take a case in point, Emmett Till who was African-American was tortured and killed because he flirted with a white woman. Trayvon Martin was a teenager who was shot and killed just because he went to grab a bag of skittles from his pocket, which the person who shot him thought he was reaching for a weapon. The many examples that Johnson makes help show how racism and stereotypes play a major role in our society because many people are still victims of discrimination. They are automatically stereotyped into a criminal who is about to do something that is illegal. In the society that we live in, blacks do not have any power, they do not get the benefit of the doubt whether or not
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908 and died on January 22, 1973. Johnson was a great president he was liked by many and everyone always had good things to say about him. Johnson was only 55 years old when he became president and was one of only four people who had served in all four elected federal offices of the United States. Johnson had moved quite quickly when he established himself as the President. Johnson supported the largest reform agenda since Roosevelt’s New Deal.
On August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave one of the most notable speeches in American history, at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. King started off his famous “I Have a Dream” speech by stating the impact it would have on America’s civil rights movement: “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation” (King 1). With knowledge of rhetoric and persuasion, King had a substantial impact on the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of ethos, pathos, and logos appeals enable King to persuade the audience to achieve equality.
Such efforts saw the rise of orators with an ability to move the thoughts of the masses on their current issues through public speeches. In 1963, such a scenario unfolded when Malcolm X gave a speech commonly referred to as ‘The ballot or the bullet’. The speech, in its own making can only be compared to Dr. Martin Luther’s ‘I got a dream’ speech. Whereas the former was given in Cleveland, Ohio the latter was in Washington. The speech, ‘the ballot or the bullet’ was meant to sensitize the African-Americans commonly referred to as Negroes of their struggle to access of their civil liberties as were ideated by the nation upon its inception as a free state.
The purpose of the speech was to address the issues of segregation and racism as a whole. King speaks about the issues of racism and segregation in America during the 1960’s. He encourages the use of non-violent protests and to fight for equality to help America solve the issue. King begins his speech by referencing important historical documents such as the Constitution of the United States and the Emancipation Proclamation. This is emphasized when he states, ”Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.