Malcolm X was one of the most active and influential figures of the civil rights era. He was a believer in equality, self-respect, and uncompromising resistance to white oppression. Malcolm X was a figure energized and educated African Americans, while frightening many whites. He was a truth-teller who decided that the civil rights movement was naïve to think that freedom through nonviolence was possible. The controversy of Malcolm X's rhetoric sometimes overshadowed the f his message, especially for those who seen him as a threat. Malcolm X was assassinated at age 39, but his political and cultural influence grew far greater in the years after his death.
On April 3, 1964, Malcolm X gave a speech called The Ballot or the Bullet in Cleveland,
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He then moves on to explain the problem at hand, taking full advantage of the use of pathos, to emotionally appeal to the audience and get them to understand his way of thinking. Throughout the speech, the repetition of the words "the ballot or the bullet" forces his audience to keep the thought of the issue in their mind. This phrase becomes all the more and more influential as the speech goes on. The speech becomes so real and intense that He exposes democrats as liars and shows that even though they have full control of the Senate and House, they still will not help out the African-Americans, which can be seen as another tactic to bring African Americans …show more content…
"The year when all of the white political crooks will be right back in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown, with their trickery and their treachery, with their false promises which they don't intend to keep." He is trying to create anger within the audience so that they will want to take action. Later on, Malcolm X begins talking about Uncle Sam (a personification of the US Government) and how he has lost all of his conscience. He states, "Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country." He is trying to get across the suffering that African Americans have been going through, and what the real cause of this suffering is. Because he is trying to paint a graphic picture of the struggle they are currently in, and also trying to convey that this struggle was literally caused by the actions of