Contextualizing The Rhetorical Situation Of John Lewis March On Washington

Joe Johnson 01/04/18 Writ 1122 Online Yin & Yang To begin, it is important to lay out the definition that each Lloyd Bitzer and Richard Vatz give to the rhetorical situation. According to Lloyd Bitzer “Rhetorical situation may be defined as a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decisions or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence.” (Bitzer) Put into layman’s terms, Lloyd Bitzer believes that there are three main parts that create a rhetorical situation – Exigence, Audience, and a set of constraints.

The first public debate over the march’s meaning took place at Centenary Methodist Church. More than six hundred people attended the meeting. Roy Wilkin’s from the NAACP was the first to speak. Wilkin’s stated “If you start hating all white men, you’re going to waste your energies. Now you can’t go home and get your gun, God forbid, but you can support the bill that is before Congress now.”

MLK Jr. Birmingham Jail. “One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty”. Born on January 15, 1929, a Baptist minister and active spokesperson during the Civil Rights era, Martin Luther King wrote a letter from Birmingham Jail. A little backstory on Martin Luther King, his birth name was actually Michael Luther King, his history of preachers or preaching originated in 1914-1931 with his grandfather and being a co-pastor with his father from 1960 to Martin’s death, also earning a B.A. degree before his death in 1948 from Morehouse College. Arrested thirty times in total for demonstrating and participating in peaceful protests against segregation, but in 1963 MLK wrote a letter from Birmingham Jail which shortly became the manifesto for the Civil Rights Movement.

put together a group of African American families as a demonstration group in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. This group planned on making their demonstration at the nation’s capital. Multiple groups of people joined together to say that they wanted peaceful change in their country. August 28, 1963 the march on Washington took place. It had brought more than 200,000 people to the capital.

Some believe that the march on Washington was the reason of a new and changing time for race relations in the United States of America. Believe it or not the march on Washington helped to validate mass political protest as an adequate means of political persuasion. The march on Washington is looked at as one of the reasons that the Civil Rights Bill was passed, after a long time of waiting the Civil Rights Bill was passed on June 19th, 1964. “The House of Representatives passed the final Senate version on July 2nd, 1964, by a vote of 289-126.” “In 1965, a major voting rights bill was enacted, which would greatly increase the enfranchisement of Southern

What are human rights? According to the UDHR, human rights “Every person is entitled to certain rights---simply by the fact they are human being”. As an example, Right number one is “We are all born equal,” number two “Don’t discriminate, “and number three “The Right to life”. But are these rights actualized for everyone on this planet? According to Elie Wiesel and Josephine Baker, among many others, human rights are, in fact, not actualized and are broken regularly.

The events that occurred within and the purpose for the march changed and impacted the lives of many African Americans. The sole purpose of the march was to get the state and local officials

The march was to push for equal education between races. There were supporters and enemies of the March. On June 6, a sniper shot James during the march. While James was recovering, important Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, took control of the March. After recovering from the shooting, James joined the march again.

Martin Luther King then lead his followers to a peaceful march, a protest for equal rights, that landed them on a historical bridge. This march helped encourage the voting rights act, and to help the civil rights keep moving forward. Thesis: In his speech, Obama establishes a rhetorical situation with his of exigence, audience, purpose, and different rhetorical appeals and devices.

Grant-Davie opens his writing with numerous definitions of a rhetorical situation. He then says that these definitions do not grasp the complexity of rhetorical situations. To fully understand a rhetorical situation, he suggests an analysis of the exigence, recognizing that rhetors and audience are both a part of a rhetorical situation, and that there may be multiple rhetors or audience. Grant-Davie then stated the four constituents in rhetorical situations that are exigence, rhetors, audiences, and constraints.

John Lewis, in his speech “You must find a way to get into trouble, good trouble” (2014), argues that others shouldn’t stand in the shadows, that they should go out and make their voices heard. Lewis supports his argument by using historically accurate evidence such as referring to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. and their advocacy for civil rights; he also uses personal experiences to further his argument. Lewis’s purpose was to empower others to make their voices heard in order to effect change. Lewis speaks in a calm, relaxed, but serious tone for the graduating class of 2014 from Emory University. His speech came in the same year that Eric Garner and Micheal Brown were murdered after being racially profiled, giving his speech a particular

Grant-Davie describes thoroughly the term rhetorical situation and how the development of the definition and its constituents has contributed to the discovery of the motives and responses behind any discourse. The analysis of rhetorical situations could determine the outer or inner influences of the rhetors, the audience, and their particular constraints. Grant Davie supports his claims by using the earlier definitions of scholars and teachers as his foundation. He also addresses his own analysis drawn by life experienced discourses which it also helps the reader understand the causes of rhetorical situations. This is important because it teaches any writer or reader to analyze a situation and think about the options and paths it could lead

March Rhetorical Analysis The 1960’s civil rights movement often used persuasive language to echo the unheard voices of many individuals. Some more than others possessed the ability to exercise their potent use of language to bring forward prominent changes. In the book, March by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, eloquent methods of speech play an important role. John Lewis, Martin Luther King, and George Wallace are some that expressed their beliefs through persuasive empowering words.

There were many sources of conflict within the civil rights movement including Issues with John Lewis’s speech for the March on Washington as well as John Lewis and The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC. Even though there were some conflict great things were still achieved. John Lewis began writing his speech for the March on Washington with the help of SNCC staffer Nancy Stern, communications director Julian Bond as well as Jim Forman and Prathia Hall. He later received a call from Bayard Rustin who said “some people are very concerned about some of the things you’re going to say in your speech” (Lewis and Aydin 2;156). Rustin was concerned because John Lewis used the word Patience in his speech which he said is a “dirty and nasty word”.

Most African Americans didn’t have have jobs. Because they were African American, most of the white people thought they were unworthy, just because of their skin color. The Washington D.C. March was so big that, The Big Six organizers were watching. It was the largest demonstration ever taking history. There were 250,000 people.