In the last years of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was able to make a critical connection between poverty, racism, and militarism. It wasn’t very long after MLK depicted the U.S. Government the “Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today” that the massacre in My Lie Village was being covered up by those that gave the order. And one year into articulately conveying his realization …
Political Speech, Eulogy, Compassionate Plea, Decisive Moment
The following rhetorical analysis attempts to understand and characterize the impact of Robert F. Kennedy’s historic speech on April 4th, 1968—the day civil-rights torchbearer and spiritual leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Through placing Kennedy in Lloyd Bitzer’s rhetorical situation, this analysis will reveal how his timely plea was able to help dissuade over 95,000 black citizens in …