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Rhetorical Analysis Of Malcolm X's Speech

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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, …show more content…

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

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In this passage Malcolm X addressed the narrating “I” to address the audience of the autobiography, and he explains to them why he put forward the “sordid” details of his younger years as well as tells the read why he made the decision to spend so much time writing a book at all. This passage shows the reader the important themes that Malcolm X aims to put forward in the book, and that is the theme of race and racism in addition to the theme of religion. The theme of race is present when he says, “I had sunk to the very bottom of American white man’s society.” This quote tells the reader that Malcolm X has aimed, and still aims, to show how American society puts the white man at power, and the African-American man below him. Then the theme

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“The Ballot or the Bullet” , by Malcolm X, uses parallel structure and anaphora to make it memorable and illustrate Malcolm X’s opinion on the Negro rights topic. “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” , by Frederick Douglass, includes antithesis to interpret his opinion on the Negro rights issue. Both speakers use pattern of three to make their speeches effective, memorable and persuading. Malcolm X was a civil rights leader before he was assassinated at the age of 40.

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At the time of this speech, April 12, 1964, the entire nation knows who Malcolm X is. His popularity automatically provides a lot of ethos. To add to that, Malcolm X is a praised speaker amongst the African American community, and is African American himself. Since his audience is towards all Blacks and African Americans, the aforementioned traits helps build a very good amount of ethos. Malcolm uses a lot of inclusive language to increase his ethos.

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