Rhetorical Analysis Of Malcolm X

“We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.” This famous quote was spoken by African-American Muslim and human rights activist Malcolm X in June of 1964. At this period of time America was going through the era of segregation and the civil rights movement so leaders like Malcolm X wished to bring blacks together to form strong organizations for change. Throughout the speech Malcolm attempts to engage his listeners to his ideas and explain the creation of an organization to increase Black Nationalism.

Can reading really be influential? Do you believe that reading can change lives? Malcolm X, one of the most influential man of his time thought so. One day he was able to turn his life around by just picking up a book and learning how to read. Whether it was in a jail cell or in a library he was reading wherever he went. In Malcolm X’s essay “Literacy Behind Bars” he writes about the topic of how reading changed his life. Throughout his life in prison, Malcolm X shares his experience of how learning how to read had changed his life forever. This essay shows how the ability to read and write opens new pathways into your imagination that you may not be able to experience if you lacked the ability to do so. Learning how to become literate did not come easy back then especially since he was African American. During his life in prison he realized that you do not need a college education to be successful; you just need to know how to read and write. The way Malcolm structured his essay helped improve his ethos much like other things did. Malcolm X’s encouraging tone was evident throughout the essay. He writes his essay with such a tone, because he is explaining his personal struggle of learning how to read and how it paid such dividends in his life after prison. By using this type of tone he appeals to people’s emotions through the use of logos, which in result helps build his ethos. As well as his tone he also uses different rhetorical devices to keep the reader engaged. The use of irony throughout the essay in appealing to the reader because it keeps them interested in the essay that they are reading. Similarly, his use of opposition within the essay makes the reader think about what they are reading. People may need to reread a sentence or two because how the opposition is used in the essay, which keeps them focused and aware of what they are reading. By utilizing several rhetorical devices, including pathos, opposition, and ethos, that being said, Malcolm X conveys the message of how reading changed his life.

In the speech, ‘The ballot or the bullet’, by Malcolm x, he claims that blacks need to exercise their rights, especially to vote, but if the government tries to prevent them from voting: violence might be necessary. Malcolm x uses emotional appeals, logical appeals, and ethical appeals to make his claim.

April 3, 1964, Malcolm X gives his well renowned speech; The Ballot or the Bullet in Cleveland Ohio. His purpose behind the speech is to encourage African-Americans of the United States to stand up to the unfair treatment that he believes they receive. Throughout the speech, Malcolm X creates an ambition in the audience, encouraging change through the numerous uses of ethos, logos, and pathos. Malcolm X uses his personal experiences to show the audience that he has experienced the same negativity that they do everyday. X suggests everyone should be treated equally; religion, gender and race aside. His audience was made up of a majority of African-Americans, he uses the common ground of wanting to achieve equal treatment to show his audience he is on the same side as them. Through the organization of the speech, it is rhetorically effective. He practices the phrase “The Ballot or the Bullet” which uses repetition, forcing listeners to remember the phrase which later becomes more effective. X begins using ethos by introducing himself, immediately gaining the attention of the audience as well as respect of the audience. X then makes the current problem in the African-American community extremely clear to the audience, this is his use of pathos, where he engages them in his thought process and bringing them in using emotion. The speech uses rhetoric to emotionally and logically

        People often refer to Malcolm’s use of terms such as the “white devil” and his overall tone as a reason for him not being the visionary that Martin Luther King was. Martin Luther King is known for teaching in a very non-violent manner in which he avoided labeling others (Litwack, pg 8). Martin Luther King certainly deserves admiration for the manner in which he got things accomplished but that shouldn’t warrant any discredit aimed at Malcolm X. Malcolm uses a very aggressive tone because he wanted to get a reaction from his audience. For Malcolm, It was absolutely imperitive that his audience realize the severity and consequences of this election year. He uses this insistent tone when he

To begin, Malcolm X’s speech detailing his his political views on black nationalism, the hypocrisy of the United States, as well as the radical steps needed to be taken by the black community to achieve equal rights, is laden with elevated language in order to create an ethical appeal to the audience. For example, Malcolm X states that “The political philosophy of black nationalism only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community” (par 2). The use of the elevated language, such as “philosophy” and “nationalism”, sophisticates the speech altogether, which successfully reflects the professional tone used by Malcolm X, as well as the seriousness of the matter; which, in turn, strengthens the overall argument being made. Moreover, through Malcolm X’s sophistication of language, and thus the speech, it

While Martin Luther King’s letter addresses the white moderates and Malcolm X’s speech addresses members of the African American community, they each seek to improve the lives of African Americans by engendering shame in their audience. Dr. King makes his audience feel shame about not living up to both their religious and moral obligations to the movement. By invoking the biblical doctrines of Christianity and Judaism, the rhetoric of the letter makes the audience feel as though they are failing to live according to their faith. He begins to do this in the second paragraph of the letter. There, Dr. King connects himself with Christianity by revealing that he is the president of the SCLC and affiliated

In his autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X emphasizes the need of changing racism in America. With many rhetorical choices, Malcolm X is able to exaggerate the urgency of change.

In 1963 John F. Kennedy proposed the civil rights bill to ban discrimination against a person’s race, religion, sex, and nationality in public spaces and for job. This bill was blocked by the Southern Democrats, also called the Dixiecrats, providing the context for Malcolm X’s speech given April 3, 1964. Malcolm X begins by clarifying that he is not speaking about his personal religious beliefs, but instead speaking to all blacks to join him in Black Nationalism in defense of their culture, their rights, and their freedom. The unjust treatment from the government in withholding blacks’ freedom, as well as the white man’s exploitation of the uneducated blacks are reasons enough to revolt and assert change. Malcolm directs the responsibility of change onto every black to educate themselves in business and politics in order to build up their poverty-stricken communities.

Lansing did not hold many opportunities of any kind for a young black man then, so without a particular plan, Malcolm X went to live with his half-sister, Ella, in Boston. Malcolm X looked, and almost immediately found trouble. He fell in with a group of gamblers and thieves, and began shining shoes at the Roseland State Ballroom. There he learned the trades that would eventually take him to jail dealing in bootleg liquor and illegal drugs. Malcolm X characterized his life then as one completely lacking in self-respect. Many journalists would emphasize Malcolm X’s “shady” past when describing the older man, his clean-cut lifestyle, and the aims of the Nation of Islam. In some cases, these references were an attempt to damage Malcolm X’s credibility, but economically disadvantaged people have found his early years to be a point of commonality, and Malcolm X himself was proud of how far he had come. He spared no detail of his youth in his autobiography, and used his Nation of Islam ideas to interpret them. Dancing, drinking, and even his hair style were represented by Malcolm X to be marks of shame and self-hatred. Relaxed hair in particular was an anathema to Malcolm X for the rest of his life; he described his first “conk” in the autobiography this way: “This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain of the hair-straightening chemicals, literally burning my flesh to have it

"Our objective is complete freedom, justice and equality by any means necessary." This quote by Malcolm X was a rally for people during the Civil Rights movement. Way before he could rally for freedom, Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry were rallying the people of America to stand up against the King of Britain. They both had strong argumentative points for what they believed in. Though they were two different writings, Thomas Paine in the Crisis No. 1 and Patrick Henry in his Speech To The Virginia Convention both had similar and different points.

The 1950's and 1960's were a time of racial turmoil throughout most of the United States. Segregation between blacks and whites was still in full effect, African Americans had to drink from different water fountains, eat at different restaurants, and even shop at different stores than their Anglo "neighbors". Many people and organizations fought valiantly for equality in the U.S. such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King jr. and the NAACP. The roles they played were critical in the civil rights movement were critical, the actions they took included peaceful demonstrations and marches, public speeches, and boycotts such as the one that took place in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. One man stands out among all of these leaders though, Malcolm X.

Stokely Carmichael posits that “There is a higher law than the law of government. That’s the law of conscience.” In the 1964 speech “The Ballot or the Bullet,” his contemporary Malcolm X warns the Black community not to allow the political agenda of White liberals to sustain their own subjugation. X utilizes the rhetorical effects of consonance, epistrophe, polysyndeton, antithesis, metaphor, and simile to make a revolutionary appeal for Black nationalism over American assimilation. A summons for the violent or nonviolent mobilization of Black people towards their advancement. Delivered on the precipice of the Voting Rights Act Of 1965, X also implores Black people in America to utilize their new “political maturity” to quell the political oppression…, economic exploitation, …and social degradation they face under the fallacy of American exceptionalism.

On April 3, 1964, human rights activist and Muslim minister, Malcolm X, delivered his most famous speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” to a predominantly black audience during a meeting at the Cory Methodist Church sponsored by the Cleveland Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In the speech, Malcolm X implores African Americans of all faiths to stand up for themselves and fight against the political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation of African Americans at the hands of the white man. The speech was given shortly after Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, an African American political and religious movement, for which he had been the spokesman, and declared his willingness to cooperate with the Civil Rights Movement. Accordingly, he wanted to distance himself from the Nation of Islam, who critics have described as black supremacist and anti-Semitic, and expand his audience to include non-Muslim African Americans and moderates who viewed the Nation of Islam as too radical. Malcolm X begins his speech by successfully employing emotional appeals; he establishes common ground with his audience by discussing the collective experience of African Americans of all faiths in an oppressive, white America which invokes their anger and frustrations. Next, he builds his credibility, using numbers and federal law to expose the “political con-game” being played by the Democratic Party, with African Americans as its victims, and encourage blacks to uses

All through America history there have been racial pressures. Malcolm X 's "The Black Revolution" emphasizes a greater amount of the Civil Rights Movement where blacks requested admiration and flexibility from the whites. It was a going stone for the American encounters today; a general public that is made out of flexibility and equivalent rights for everybody. Malcolm X was persuading in light of the fact that he made a decent utilization of talk procedures. Malcolm X used more direct and aggressive tone in his speech. His primary center in the discourse was to focus on his gathering of people 's feelings on the grounds that he realized that once he could get to their feelings, they would be more open to his thoughts Malcolm X effectively used pathos, agitation and a method of propaganda to spread his message across his audiences.