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Persuasive Speech Essay

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An American literary theorist and novelist, Kenneth Burke, once said, “Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning.” (Burke) Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer all delivered powerful persuasive speeches that will go down in history. The use of these motivational individuals’ language and persuasion played a pivotal role within the civil rights movement, the movement that achieved the most important breakthrough in the equal rights legislation. We can observe this in the speakers’ rhetoric devices like ethos, logos and pathos.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the events on “Bloody Sunday”, Obama gave a speech filled with encouraging words about how far America has come. Throughout his speech he included various pathos examples. For instance, he reasons, “[…] all of us need to recognize, as they did, that change depends on our actions, our attitudes, the things we teach our children. And if we make such effort, no matter how hard it may seem, laws can be passed, and consciences can be stirred, and consensus can be built.” (Obama) Obama utilized the word “all” and “we” as if the people were one. As if each and every one of us had as much responsibility as the next and because he did this, some may have begun to fulfill that responsibility.
Ethos is another rhetoric analysis, it defines someone’s character or identity and Obama does just that when he said, “[…] who serve in elected office from small

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