Rhetorical Analysis Of Coretta Scott King's Senate Floor Speech

Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr, was a American author and 1960’s Civil Rights activist who passed away on January 30, 2006. The next day, the Senate Floor Speech on the Passing of Coretta Scott King was delivered by Barack Obama to honor all the impact she had on the country. This speech resulted to effectively manipulate the audience to empathize for Carreta’s pasing due to the use of rhetorical appeals, literary devices and diction.
Obama failed to use any logical appeals and some critics may like to point that out, but his speech was effective regardless due to his excessive and powerful uses of both emotion and credibility. Obama began his speech with describing her early life struggles, “walked five miles to school… and felt the heat of racism each day

she passes … the Whites only school,” follows with mentioning her achievements, “excelled beyond most classmates… earned a college degree and an acceptance to a prestigious graduate school,” and then addressed her methods of how she impacted society, “she raised a family, she marched through the streets, she inspired through song, she led through speech.” These three steps complement each other and create a feeling of empathy and inspiration within the audience. Furthermore, he later provides credibility to himself, other than being an Illinois senator, by saying, “I had the great honor of knowing Mrs.King.” This constructs the thought of trust in what the speech consists of.
The speech contains literary devices such as repetition and list of threes to add further influence.

When Barack was listing the things she had done in order to impact society he repeated, “she,” before each phrase to emphasize the recognition he was giving her and build Coretta King’s character in the eye of the audience. In addition to that, later in the speech he introduces Dr. King quote, repeats a piece of it and then correlates it to what took place during the time period. This is his quote: “ When you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone because you will have divine companionship and the support of good people.” He then says, “ when you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone,” and follows with the correlation, “ she was joined by the companionship and support of a loving family and a grateful nation.” The sentence after this Obama states this list of three, “-inspired by her cause, dedicated to her work, and mournful of her passing.” As can be seen, this list of three successfully concludes a powerful speech by saying how she is an inspiration and telling the audience how they feel about Coretta Scott’s

passing.
As presented Obama uses diction to his advantage to no only add emphasis to literary devices but accommodate her impact on society. His word choices include “succeeded,” “excelled,” and “selfless.” These positive terms make the audience view her as a viable role model and inspiration. While, on the other hand, to show weakness and perseverance, he used “cry,” “mourn,” “anger,” and “vengeance.” Prior to when these words were voiced, the audience may have pictured her as an impossibly phenomenal woman, nothing like they could be, but when Obama brings her to her feet, the audience can better relate to Mrs. King.
Barack Obama delivered the Senate Floor Speech on the Passing of Coretta Scott King to a room of congressmen and successfully convinced them of her impact through the Civil Rights Movement by using rhetorical appeals, literary devices, and diction.