First, American civil liberties are no longer a major issue because all races have equal rights. In Frederick Douglass’ speech ‘What To The American Slave is Your Fourth of July’, he uses ethos to explain how law gave “equal manhood of the Negro race” long ago (Doc C). Douglass uses a neutral tone when describing the state of equality, giving a blatant ethos feeling and making his message clear by transcending emotion and appealing straight to the facts. …show more content…
By referring to an entire race with the term ‘Negro race’ separates races clearly in the reader’s mind, but the context breaks that idea, emphasizing the point that we are equal in today’s world. Looking at this speech 165 years later, it can only be assumed we are in a superior environment. This is because when someone opposing this idea their entire life supports it, it becomes self-evident. From the perspective of Douglass, a very powerful Civil Rights Activist, we see the legal racial inequality lines shattered in his eyes. In his speech ‘A Time to Break Silence’, Martin Luther King uses ethos to define the state of racial equality in a modern America. He recalls an idea he had that America will be saved when the “descendants of … slaves [lose] the shackles they still wear” (Doc A). The ‘shackles’ worn by these descendants are the weight of inequality and suffering the lineage of the slaves were burdened with. The freedom, or ‘saving’, of America is the point we’re at now- without the worry of civil liberties. Having lost these ‘shackles’ of oppression, America is saved. Further, America is no longer burdened with racial inequality or civil liberty issues. Through the analysis of these speeches, we can conclude that America has an affirmed equality between races because they are equal in law and slavery no longer plagues us. Second, America no longer faces issues of civil liberties because we have won women’s suffrage. On Anthony’s tombstone, we see many a voting sticker (Doc D). These stickers represent an empowered group of women who owe their newly found rights to Susan B. Anthony. The stickers are obviously just a physical item but they mean more in objective thought. The stickers are the messages from the women who exercise a right they should have had since the beginning of time. They are all a tribute to Anthony and the gender equality she brought in her life. Accompanying the voting stickers, Anthony’s tombstone has a flyer with Rosie the Riveter on it that reads: ‘We Can Do It!’(Doc D). This flyer was a very powerful message in 20th Century America, becoming important to the women of that time. In its literal standing on her tombstone, the flyer is to pay homage to the figure and all of her achievements. In this context, the flyer is perhaps less meaning ‘We Can Do It’ but a