Nikki Giovanni uses Ethos as she speaks to her grieving audience about how they are able to use a tragic event to embrace themselves but also to use it as a stretch instead of a weakness. In Nikki’s speech, she states,”We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies''. Nikki uses ethos as a major rhetorical device in her speech to be able to motivate the grieving and traumatized audience that they are able to pass such a traumatic experience by using it as strength and to include change within their generation. Nikki also gives credibility to her audience for the main purpose to also motivate them and that they could pass through