The Ballot Or The Bullet Rhetorical Devices

The Civil Rights Movement has fought against the racial discrimination of African Americans. This movement created many African American leaders, one of them named Malcolm X. In Malcolm X’s speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” he encourages his fellow African American people to adopt the philosophy of Black Nationalism. To convey his message X incorporates allusions to American icons and historical events, repetition, and tone shifts.

Malcolm X uses allusions in his speech to be able to create a visual representation for his audience so they can understand, why the Black community needs to adopt Black Nationalism. “Uncle Sam … blood...your and mine mothers and fathers…” is an example of how he uses allusions. This allusion forms an image of the American government being a criminal that kills innocent African Americans. This makes the audience feel anger and hate toward the government, and it helps X have a strong connection with the audience by the use of “your and mine.” With the audience having

the feeling of anger and hate, Malcolm X is able to introduce the need for Black Nationalism. A historical reference to the American Revolution was used by X to show his audience that trough Black Nationalism the Black community can achieve racial equality. “Liberty or death … freedom … in this country…” is was X says. This is used as an encouragement to his audience, that fighting for the rights they deserve, Black Nationalism, the audience can gain racial equality.
In order to emphasize his points Malcolm X uses repetition.

X repeats many times the definition of what Black Nationalism is. Malcolm X define Black Nationalism as the need for the Blacks to have the power of their own communities. By giving the definition more than once, X gives different examples of how Blacks can incorporate it into their lives. With this the audience is able to understand why Black Nationalism is needed in the Black community. The repetition of “human rights” is very important for X to be able to express what his intentions are with Black Nationalism. For the audience hearing human Rights over and over again makes them what to adopt Black Nationalism. Black Nationalism at this point is seen as a synonym to human rights. Malcolm X makes his point of why the the African Americans need to adopt the Black Nationalism lifestyle. The repetition X uses helps him achieve his point of the need of Black Nationalism in order to be able to obtain racial

equality.
Tone is a very important factor in Malcolm X’s speech, in order to be able to express his view on Black Nationalism the correct way. Malcolm X has various tone shifts throughout the speech, with an overall angry tone. An angry tone is essential to this speech because it helps emphasize the unjust treatment toward the Blacks. This caused the audience to feel angry as well and be able to clearly see why action is needed in order to be treated differently. Anger is shown almost entirely throughout the speech, but there are times where Malcolm X seems to relax and have more of a neutral tone. This helps the audience understand the problems and solutions that X proposes. The tone of the speech motivates the audience to adopt the philosophy of Black Nationalism, in order to see change of the treatment of the Black community. The tone shifts that X expresses helps the audience understand his views.
Through various uses of allusions to America, repetition of his views and points, and the different tones used, Malcolm X structures his argument for the need of Black Nationalism. X gives a clear speech on his beliefs of Black Nationalism with the uses of these strategies and is able to make his audience see why Black Nationalism is important. Now in day we still see the racial discrimination toward the Black community, although is in not as intense as it was in the time of the speech.