Robert F Kennedy Speech Analysis

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed April 4th 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee. The night of King’s death, Robert F. Kennedy addressed a rally between 17th and Broadway in Indianapolis, Indiana, informing them of King’s untimely passing. Kennedy, who had been in Indianapolis for the Democratic Presidential Nominations, went to the rally, which was set in the heart of Indianapolis’ African-American ghetto. Kennedy makes the claim to this captive audience, “we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or to go beyond these rather difficult times”. It is believed that due to Kennedy’s speech, Indianapolis was one of the only cities that did not riot due to King’s death. The reasons Robert F. Kennedy’s speech went over so well was due to Kennedy himself and due to the rhetorical figures, which he used to persuade the audience, to ask for love and peace rather then act out in violence and hatred. After receiving the news of King’s death, Kennedy decided to still attend a rally that he …show more content…
He understands how the audience may be feeling in this time but that the audience and the country have to move beyond this and make an effort in order to get past those difficult times. Kennedy mentions that he knows what it is like to lose someone you love as he did lose his brother only a few years earlier. This use of referencing the past helps Kennedy and the audience come closer together as it connects them in that they both have suffered great loses. Kennedy brings hope to a rally full of people who are angry and upset by the loss of someone that meant so much to