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Analysis Of Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence

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Martin Luther King Jr. in his speech, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence, discusses the Vietnam war. King supports his discussion by establishing authority and appealing to his listeners emotions. The author's purpose is to call attention to what's happening in Vietnam in to raise awareness so they can begin to make a change. The author writes in a frustrated but inspirational style for his audience and others speaking up about Vietnam. Martin Luther King Jr. establishes his authority among his listeners in the church. King is a black civil rights leader, a preacher of a church, he grew up poor and has been/ done so many things within his life. He is one of the few people who can relate to the majority of the people in the church. King …show more content…

In his speech, King says, "It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population." King is appealing to his listeners sense of emotion by reminding them what this war is doing to so many families. Taking away male loved ones and sending them off to war. This can easily appeal to one's emotions because it's something almost all families can relate too. King also says, "We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem." King is able to appeal to his listeners emotions with this example because he is standing in a poor black church talking to families who have been or are in the predicament of not having any of the rights they deserve. Listening to this example can make his listeners feel many different types of ways because of the irony of not only do the men fighting in the war not have the rights they deserve, but their only fighting to help others gain the same

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