The Rhetoric Of Frederick Douglass Fight For Freedom

Douglass claimed that although slavery was abolished, blacks were living under a different kind of slavery after the Civil war. Discrimination and racism was prominent and there were few laws enforced. “So long as discriminatory laws ensured defacto white control over Southern blacks, then ‘slavery by yet another name’ persisted. ‘Slavery is not abolished,’ he contended, ‘until the black man has the ballot’ with which to defend his interests and freedom.” (Howard-Pitney 485). Here we see Douglass using logic in order to reach his audience. As audience members, people would be able to clearly make connections between the former slavery, and what Douglass stated the black population was still living under. Similarly, King used the logic of his

Douglass was more educated than any other black man of his time, simply due to the fact that it was illegal for colored men to learn to read. Yet, Douglass’s rise to popularity was unprecedented. He orated on a circuit to small groups of abolitionists, and eventually rose to be an advisor to President Lincoln during the Civil War. All this from a former runaway slave. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, Dr. King Jr. used a page out of Douglass’s book, but this time, he had the previous black protestors to refer to. Additionally, Alicia Garza, one founder of the #blacklivesmatter movement, uses lines from Douglass’s speech in order to refer to the great rhetoric

The ability to use words to share ideas dates back to before religion existed, and yet look at what the Men and Women of Color have achieved in their short 300 years. Since 1741, men of color used their ability to reason and orate to share the horrors of slavery, banding together, often under the torture and scrutiny of the white government that oppressed them. Rhetoric of color has seen the fall of slavery, the fall of segregation, tougher laws against racism, the rise of the Civil Rights movement, and the beginning of the #blacklivesmatter movement. For a group of individuals who were once deemed three-fifths of a person, they have accomplished much. One main accomplishment that began before the Civil Rights Movement was the registration of black voters. Douglass understood this after the end of the Civil war, when blacks were treated just as poorly by whites in the south, and through the passage of the Jim Crow laws and segregation. However, he instead of fighting for the black vote, supported women’s suffrage. He even spoke on several occasions for Suffragette and friend Susan B. Anthony. Douglass understood that with more voters out there, albeit white, female, voters, this would pave the way for the eventual black