Rhetorical Analysis Of Beyond Vietnam

“Beyond Vietnam-A Time to Break Silence” Rhetorical Analysis

Over the years there have been many great speeches said by very good orators, but few of them had the effect that Martin Luther King, Jr. had on his audience, and none were as famous as his “I Have A Dream” speech. What made Dr. King’s speech so compelling was the fact that he was preacher and was very good at capturing the audience’s attention. The way he presented his arguments to captivate the audience and to get them to agree with whatever he was saying was a technique called the Aristoliean rhetoric, a device that helped him persuade his audience to accomplish his goals. But when he made the “Beyond Vietnam-A Time to Break Silence” speech on April 4, 1967, it was not recognized

We want nothing for ourselves—only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way. We will do everything necessary to reach that objective, and we will do only what is absolutely necessary.

So when Johnson sent more troops to Vietnam, it angered Dr. King because more young African American were being drafted to the war, when the president’s attention should have been directed to the problems in America (Young 1).

Martin Luther King, Jr. makes logical appeals in “A Time to Break Silence” speech about how in times of war "men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy" and that “antiwar activists should ‘demonstrate, teach, and preach until the country’s foundations were shaken” even when no organization was supporting him, he was achieving great results, but the changes were occurring because of “the growing number of men in American political life who began to dissent from U.S. policy” (Reed 159). Even in an interview, Dr. King was told that it wasn’t a good idea to criticize the policy on war, and Dr. King answered by saying, “Even when pressed by the demand of inner truth, (people) do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world” (Reaves).

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King, William M. “Reemerging Revolutionary Consciousness of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” The Journal of Negro History. 71.No. 1/4 (1986): 1-22. JSTOR. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.

Reaves, Bill. "Time to Break Silence: An Interview with Dr. King." New York Amsterdam News 88.6 (1997): 30. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 26 Jan. 2011.

Reed, Harry A. “Martin Luther King, Jr.: History and Memory, Reflections on Dreams and Silences” The Journal of Negro History. 8.2 (1999): 150. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.

Shujaa, Mwalimu J. "The Widening Gap between Education and Schooling in the Post 9/11 Era” The Journal of Negro Education. 72.2 (2003): 179-89. JSTOR. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.

Young, Stephen B. "President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam War Disengagement Strategy." Vietnam (2006): 1. HistoryNet.com. Web. 8 Feb.