Message To Grassroots Ethos Pathos Logos

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Taken from “Message to Grassroots”, this speech extract is a emotive and appealing piece delivered by human rights activist Malcolm X. Malcolm X is considered one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history and famous for his idea of establishing a separate black nation funded by US government. The speech was delivered on November 10, 1963, at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. "Message to the Grass Roots" was one of Malcolm X's last speeches as a member of the Nation of Islam. As the most "political" speech Malcolm X had delivered to that time, “Message to the Grass Roots" can be viewed as a sign of Malcolm X's impending separation from the Nation of Islam. In the speech, Malcolm spoke not as a Muslim …show more content…

Through the introduction, Malcolm brings out the emotion of anger and sad to the audience to help him engage with them. He said “We want to have just an off-the-cuff chat between you and me.” at the beginning to bring himself closer to the audience so that audience consider him on the same side. This results in more people willing to listen to him and believe in him. “you are not wanted’ demonstrate white people’s feelings for African Americans, which brings out anger and the will to leave. Moreover, he points out directly the most painful history of African Americans, “So we are all black people, so-called Negroes, second-class citizens, ex-slaves. You are nothing but a ex-slave. You don’t like to be told that. But what else are you? You are ex-slaves.” This is a break point in the speech as it is the experience that the black people do not want to talk about and hurt them most deeply. Malcolm mentions this fact with an extremely insulting word ‘negroes’ to evoke the anger and the affliction inside black people so that it is easier for them to accept his opinion rather than integrate into society peacefully. In the fourth paragraph, Malcolm persuades the audience that white people were and will always be African Americans’ enemy according to the terrible things they have done to black people. Malcolm successfully capture the development of the emotion of the audience to engage them with his