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Lyndon B Johnson Allusion

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Lyndon B. Johnson was the president when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. The passing of this bill was largely influenced by the speech Johnson gave on March 15. This speech was named “The American Promise” due to the hope and assurance that President Johnson provided through his words. Through this speech, President Johnson was able to conjure support to pass his voting rights bill by using rhetorical techniques such as, allusions and connotative diction.
Any kind of speech can and should connect with its audience on a personal level. President Johnson uses many different techniques to accomplish this feat. One of these techniques is allusion. President Johnson includes multiple allusions throughout the speech, but one of the most …show more content…

Connotative diction was more prevalent than any other technique. One example of this is when President Johnson says, “There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is a cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight” (Johnson). The response President Johnson was trying to stimulate was disappointment in the American people for what they had done to the African Americans. However, he followed up their disappointment with words of encouragement to do better and help instead of humiliate. His hopes were that Americans hearing how shameful their actions were would prevent them from continuing to happen. President Johnson also brings forth connotative diction when he states, “ For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great Government–the Government of the greatest Nation on earth” (Johnson). The first portion of the quote describes how the African Americans have been trying to gain equal rights and how they have been bringing attention to the suffering they were put through. Yet again, President Johnson follows up the sadness with comfort and confidence in their country. He provides positive aspects of their country and gives them assurance that the United States will overcome its struggles for equal voting rights. Through these quotes, it is able to be understood how connotative diction can impact one's speech and supply support from the speaker's

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Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 speech “The American Promise” is a powerful, emotive address to the nation that declared the United States' commitment to ending poverty and racial injustice. In this speech, Johnson paints a vivid picture of the progress and potential of America, and issues a passionate plea for the nation to embrace its collective promise to protect and advance the rights of all Americans. Johnson's speech is an example of powerful rhetoric, as he uses a range of persuasive devices to appeal to the nation's sense of morality and justice such as connotative diction and allusions. In his speech, "The American Promise," Lyndon B. Johnson used connotative diction to evoke an emotional response from his audience.

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Lyndon Johnson’s mix of Pathos and Logos helped convinced the crowd into helping him abolish racist voting restrictions. In the speech “We shall overcome,” Lyndon Baines Johnson used Logos and Pathos to convince the crowd, and backed it up with a strong, determined tone. In this speech, Lyndon Johnson stated how unfair the racist voting restrictions and said that it was wrong and that everyone had a right to vote. He also backed everything up with a stern, unbreakable voice to help deliver his

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In the 1960’s during the era of the Civil Rights movement, America had been divided by the voting rights that were not given to the African Americans. Although, a decade ago the African Americans had been freed from slavery, but they were still not considered “equal” because they weren't able to vote. The discrimination in the area even had political leaders affected, therefore many of those political leaders during that time attempted to put an end to the several agonizing events going on. Lyndon B Johnson, a white persistent president speaks out to the lawmakers using compassionate encouraging appeals about voting for Civil Rights, in order to unify the nation “to build a new community”. President Johnson utilizes many devices in his speech such as anaphora, emotional appeals, and

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As a matter of fact, many instances occurred where a word or phrase is used in repetition for emphasis. Johnson used phrases over and over to grab the attention of his crowd and to create precedence within the phrases. A repeated introduction to many sentences was “there is no”; this began the structure of the sentences where he’d address generalized groups of people. There is no southern problem and there is no northern problem were monumental statements in his speech; the crowd’s reaction was a turning point for the

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Lyndon B Johnson’s "We Shall Overcome" speech demonstrates how Johnson used his platform as president to address the issue of African American rights at the time. The speech was given in Washington DC on March 15th, 1965 to the United States Congress. Johnson was speaking about the injustices that African Americans were facing, after a violent scene had broke out in Alabama a week before. He first spoke out on the social injustices in the country that had been ignored, and later announced his plans to end them. Johnson’s speech was based on true knowledge and had the goal of expanding Congress and America’s knowledge on the problems facing the country.

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In order house constitutive rhetoric the speaker must be able to create an identity that the audience can relate to. Another example of a person using constitutive rhetoric to develop a common identity with the audience is in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” King faced the hardship of being a black man during a transitional period of America, where African-Americans were still treated as lesser than white Americans. In Michael Leff and Ebony A. Utley’s article, they describe how Martin Luther King Jr. successfully used constitutive rhetoric in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech to create a more unified identity among his black and white audiences. Consequently, ending the civil rights movement and making a more equal

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The Great Society On May 22nd of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to the graduating class of the University of Michigan on The Great Society, saying "The Great Society rest on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time”, words that were spoken by President Johnson. The main passage of “The Great Society” by Lyndon Baines Johnson was mainly concentrated on eliminating poverty and racial injustice as revealed through his parallelism and anaphora. With this compelling speech, Lyndon inspired many young Americans to take actions to better their country using persuasive proofs such as ethos, logos, and pathos His persuasive techniques that applied directly to the students’ emotions inspired them to construct a better America just like President Johnson’s plan.

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As example, in this speech, “Your imagination, your initiative and your indignation will determine(…)”, “expansion is eroding(…), and “They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.” 4.0 CONCLUSION In the Great Society speech that was delivered during graduation day of Michigan University, the speaker, Lyndon Baines Johnson delivers his speech very successfully. His speech consists of all five rhetoric canons which are invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery. This speech also contains appeals such as ethos, pathos and logos.

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This speech has a lot of rhetorical devices. We are going to be analyzing calm of value, Logos, and hortative sentence In “We Shall Overcome” Johnson used calm of value. The calm of value is to argue if something is good or bad, right or wrong. In this whole speech former president Johnson is arguing that the Voting Right Act. is a good thing for the US.”All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship, regardless of race, and they are going to have those privileges of citizenship regardless of race” and that "All men are created equal.

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President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech “We Shall Overcome” focuses on the issue at hand African Americans rights as not just people but citizens of the United states. Delivered in 1965 he aimed at the issue that happened in Selma, Alabama where civil right activists were protesting for their right to vote but were brutally beaten. Johnson’s audience is everyone. He wants the suffering of people to come to an end and form that nation that once chose to right the wrongs of the world.

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804 Words | 4 Pages

was able to give hope about the future to his audience by using logos, ethos and pathos. Because of his background in civil rights, he uses ethos to capture his crowds attention. Also, he shows us how logically flawed America was for it did not follow the principles it was based on. In conclusion, he uses suffering to emotionally inspire Americans to take a stand and do something for their future and families. His speech was so persuading and rhetorically satisfactory that it motivated the government take action on civil rights in America.

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Jeannette Shackelford Duane Watson Engl 1302 02Febuary 2015 Press Hard For the Power to Vote In the speech “We Shall Overcome”, the speech was written by Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, the speech was addressed to Congress on voting legislation and to the United States as a whole. The speech was given on March 15, 1965 in an era where there was much bigotry, racial violence against blacks. The speech was televised a week after the after math of the deadly violence that had erupted in Salem Alabama, which was supposed to be a peaceful protest, that was given by the Negros a protest for equal rights to vote, turned into a violent protest.

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At the beginning of his speech, he conveys emotion through telling his own story and putting the audience in his shoes. He states “On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war. He pledges allegiance to that flag which guarantees "liberty and justice for all. " He is part of a country in which anyone can become President, and so forth”. This shows the audience how African American children feel when living in a country made on the premise of equality, but feeling anything but equal to their Caucasian peers.

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In the 1960s the African Americans were freed, but did they really have all the rights they were promised? Racial conflicts were everywhere. Lyndon B. Johnson was current president and was trying to encourage congress to pass a bill called The Voting Rights Act. To influence the vote he gave the speech “We Shall Overcome.” In “We Shall Overcome” President Lyndon Johnson used ethos, pathos, logos, and other rhetorical devices such as allusions, repetition and appeals to authority to persuade congress to pass the act.

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Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s Victory Speech Barack Obama was re-elected as the president of the US on November 6, 2012 from Chicago, Illinois. This paper will throw light and analyse various elements Barrack Obama is using to portray his political ideology to audiences through his speech. I intend to focus on the rhetorical effects of the speech. By using various form of rhetorical tools such as Tautology or Anaphora, President Obama gives a speech which focuses on the idea of American life such as the American dream, American promise and the future.

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