A Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King Jr.

In a speech Rev. Martian Luther King Jr. gave to the Riverside Church in New York City, King conveyed his beliefs on the horrific atrocities currently present in the Vietnam War. King began by stating that no longer Vietnam was a oversea issues, "Vietnam [had to be brought] into the field of my moral vision". Likewise, King stated the issues at home such as the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor were fighting in the Vietnam War. In King's mindset, a nation that held it self on the acclaim that all men are created equal, was in fact not equal. King uses a variety of persuasive elements including, but not limited to: concrete examples and analysis, a robust tone, and powerful rhetoric. While King was only one voice out of many of those who were on both sides of the war, King still managed to change others views about politics through the usage of his persuasive elements. In all, King posses a natural eloquence that allows him to spread his message far and wide with the hopes that America will never forget the testatrices that took place at home and oversea during the Vietnam War.

In paragraphs 12-14 King uses a combination of rhetorical strategies to argue the urgency for changing current segregation laws. Kings selective use of imagery, parallel structure, and metaphors helps bring out the emotions of the eight clergymen, making them feel sympathy and understand Martin Luther King Jr.s point of view.

In order to successfully write rhetorically, an author must persuade an audience as if to win a debate. To do this, the author must create a trustworthy bond with the audience, support his claim through reason, and create emotion in the audience that compels them to leap out of their seats and take action. Martin Luther King Jr. attempted to do this when he wrote an open letter while in his jail cell after a peaceful debate against segregation. His lettered response was guided at a statement by eight white Alabama clergymen saying that segregation should be fought in court and not on the streets. King uses a combination of three rhetorical appeals to accomplish his rhetor; ethical, logical and emotional. The three appeals used together

The importance of making a change to those living in poverty is shown through the use of

With the people of The United States of America categorized as the audience, King speaks to people of all races and ethnicity. This discriminated audience included the grasping appeals to the ethos, pathos, and logos. As each appeal is fully informed of the rhetorical purpose, King finds a way to encourage all three. Through several metaphors and types of imagery, he makes the decision to speak to all of the appeals in order to accomplish to need for change. Clearly aimed directly at the hearts of blacks and making the whites feel ashamed of their actions brought together a turn in society as they knew it. This specific structure geared towards the audience was the main reason why King impacted Americans across the country and not just at the march. These different appeals mixed within the audience to help King influence his purpose of racial equality as each type of person could relate to his moving words.

Martin Luther King Jr. built his speech around fighting unjust conditions placed on both African Americans and soldiers of the Vietnam war with non-violent protest. King is arguably the best speaker the world has seen, he knows how to get his audience passionate about the problems America faces while also informing them of what causes these problems.

In his "Letter," Martin Luther King Jr.'s ability to effectively use pathos, or to appeal to the emotions of his audiences, is evident in a variety of places. More particularly in paragraph fourteen, King demonstrates his ability to inspire his fellow civil rights activists, invoke empathy in the hearts of white moderates, and create compassion in the minds of the eight clergyman to which the "Letter" is directed.

On April 28, 1963 over 200,00 Americans gathered at the Washington monument to protest cruelty that was being spread among our country. On that day, one of the most famous speeches of all American history was delivered. From that speech, America experienced a change that has brought us to where we are today. In the famous, “I have a dream” speech proclaimed by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., many types of rhetoric was utilized to try and stop the racial inequality that was occurring within our country at the time.

First, Martin Luther King Jr. establishes his credibility as an honorable and trustworthy man to effectively convince his audience of his moral and just actions. To begin his letter, he acknowledges the fact that the clergymen see him and his allies as “outsiders coming in” (King Jr. 1). However, he counteracts their false claim by introducing himself as “president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state” with “some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (King Jr. 1). By doing so, King Jr. puts himself in a position of authority to demonstrate to the clergymen that he is not just an average man trying

( King Jr.)This shows that he lives in this time with this people and know what they are facing and the streets. King lives with and in the black communities so to him, his audience was “my

Martin Luther King makes significant use of emotional appeals to connect and enlist a sense of trust between him and the citizens of the community as

Now, imagine that you have to speak to these people and motivate them to take action, but to do so peacefully. This is precisely what MLK made an effort to do in his speech. During his speech Dr. King used elements of pathos, ethos, and, logos to motivate and educate his audience. By using a particular word choice and building a common ground, Dr. Martin

Best communicator Martin Luther King Jnr former leader of the American civil rights movement delivered a series of speeches in his non-violent war against oppression and racism during his activism years. The most remarkable of his speech was "I have a dream' which he delivered during the Washington March on 28th August 1963 at the step of Lincoln Memorial. He is arguably one of the greatest orators in the worlds history and one of Americas most influential speakers who saw his audience spring into action through his iconic speeches (Vail, 52). Through speech, Luther captivated his audience using thought-provoking ideas and poetic language.

Martin Luther King, a black civil right campaigner, gave an unforgettable speech called “I Have a Dream” on August 28, 1963, commemorating the centennial of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and urging President John F. Kennedy to pass civil rights bill. King’s purpose of giving this speech is to eliminate the inequality of treatment to black people, to express the necessities of eradicating racial inequality and to pursue the improvement of future changes. He adopted a tone in order to appeal similar feelings and experiences with the audience, especially black people. In this paper, the rhetoric strategies in King’s speech, such as allusion, simile, hyperbole and repetition emphasize his ideas, help audience to remember his ideas and raise

King is able to unify the protesters, encourage them to rise up together, and defeat the atrocity of racism by alluding to their anguish through personification and imagery. For example, King recognizes that “the nation is sick”(King 2). King assigns human qualities to the nation in order to comment on the offenses committed against the African Americans by the people of the nation. These offenses remind the audience of their common struggle and unify them. In doing so, King reveals that this is an issue but it can be resolved and the audience can heal the nation as they would a human being. Imagery in King’s speech also develops the intensity of the distress African Americans face. To illustrate, King describes “thirteen hundred of God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights” (King 4). This gut-wrenching image causes the audience to feel immense sorrow and anguish for the African Americans depicted. These emotions are uniform in every member of the audience and thus unites them on an emotional level. A pathetic appeal is integrated into King’s argument to stop this pain and