"This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper." By Franklin Roosevelt in the ("First Inaugural Address"). Roosevelt used many verbal flourishes to encourage our people to rebuild America, and allow them to reconstruct it. He took action against the Depression using his words as his sword, and the strike his actions. He proposed new bills that allowed them to get up to where we used to be.…
Martin Luther King Jr.’s A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. is an essential, one-volume compilation of the late Civil Rights activist’s words. Included in the volume are autobiographical reflections, interviews and speeches. Within these compiled words hold Dr. King’s thoughts on a great many subjects including, but not limited to, black nationalism, nonviolence, poverty and segregation. Some of these works include the “Playboy” interview, “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”, “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”, and the famous “I Have a Dream” speech. For the reader’s convenience, Dr. King’s works are organized the general philosophy or topic that relates to what he is speaking on.…
Barack Obama became the first African American to become President of the United States on January 20, 2009. With his presidency, he promised to make changes that would unshackle Americans from crisis and start a new beginning, despite some unsuccessful policies along the way. Taking a look into how he rose to be successful, the triumphs he has provided, and some of his unfortunate improprieties, helps to paint a better picture of the man we call our President. Obama prepared himself as a child to beat the odds, and one day become president. He was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii to Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr…
Jeremiads have been around for thousands of years. This rhetorical strategy is named after the prophet Jeremiah, who prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem because Israelites turned their backs on the Lord and were worshipping false idols. A jeremiad is a sermon, speech, visual text, or essay that unifies people by creating tension between an ideal social life and its manifestation (Aufses). A traditional jeremiad presents a spiritual or biblical ideal for specific behaviors. It then describes the way an individual or community has fallen from the standards and provides a vision for an ideal public life that will result from a return to the high standards that have been presented (Aufses).…
Victories under his presidency include the signing of the Matthew Shepard Act and Marriage Equality becoming the law of the land. Obama’s legacy, motivates me, in my work in the…
In 2012, President Barack Obama delivered a speech at Newtown High School to console his sorrow to the families of victums and assure the community that they are not alone in such a difficult time. His speech was directed to multiple people as he opened his speech with “To all the families, first responders, to the community of Newtown, clergy, guests” (1). He conviced everyone that a school shooting could have happened anywhere and they are not alone by saying “They lost their lives in a school that could have been any school” (5). Obama’s speech is inspirational yet frustrating. He inspires his audience to learn from the shooting and correct the mistakes.…
“(We have) more to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college (Obama, para 6).” Interestingly, he follows this statement with an attempt to dissatisfy one of the commonplace arguments against liberal policies. Mr. Obama says that these people do not ‘expect that government will solve all of their problems,’ but that they are willing to work hard in order to achieve their dreams. This seems to solidify Obama’s ethos with the audience, especially when combined with the specific scenarios that he uses to exemplify the need for his policies. The middle section of the speech is dedicated to the 2004 Presidential Election.…
In the year 2008 President Barak Obama was running for his second term in office. As an African American male, there were concerns of racial tension harming the country. During March of 2008, President Barack Obama gave a speech on unity in the United States called “A More Perfect Union”, in which his delivery and words were clear and moving. (Center, N.C.) Unity is what is needed in this land of diversity.…
Obama has become inspirational to different cultures, ages, races, and genders. In his speech, he was able to carry out the rhetorical appeals that persuaded the audience that night with ethos, pathos, and logos appeals. To assure the United States that by picking Barack Obama as their president, the country was moving forward.…
In the beginning of the speech President Obama said, “My fellow citizens” (Jan, 2009). An emotional image was drawn in the citizen mind that the president has goals and aims in common. Goals and aims that helping to solve the current problems that most of the citizens had. Also, the president used through his speech we to connect himself the public and he stands as citizen like them. Moreover, President Obama proved how American citizens able to change and he provided an example of himself when he said “why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath” (2009).…
The American Voice The American voice is something very unique to America; people who are born here or immigrated here, use their own language to describe what this country means to them. America has long been a land of freedom, opportunity and equality, from the time of “1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” In researching this topic, I read many multiple different articles and watched a variety of online videos to learn what others thought of what this country has to offer. Numerous people over the years have written about what America means to them; while not being a common thought, this is an important subject for us to discuss and examine. In my opinion, the American voice means that we as Americans have the right…
Obama displays himself as someone who they can trust and listen to. In addition, by starting his speech this way, Obama shows how thankful he is to be a citizen of America and indirectly implies that every citizen should be just as proud to be a citizen of America. Obama then continues on to the next portion of his speech, which encompasses what he hopes to see America accomplish in the future. The “climax” of his speech is in Obama’s last section, which contains the whole reason in why Obama made the speech in the first place and…
Audacity of Hope Rhetorical Analysis "My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of Earth" - Abe Lincoln. Since it 's early beginnings, America has been a place of hope, and that standard is carried on through a speech, given by Senator Barrack Obama, called The Audacity of Hope. Obama gave this speech as the Keynote address for the 2004 Democratic National Convention. At the time, Democrat John Kerry was running for president against Republican George Bush.…
Both King and Obama obtain positions in society that affect their perspectives on violence. In his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, King states society needs to overcome violence without the use of violence. By him saying this, the reader can tell that King is an activist for the civil rights movement. He believes in fighting violence with nonviolence, something that is thought to be ineffective for civil rights. King also says, “…nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time…”…
President Barack Obama speech on " Don't Tell Me Words Don't Matter" inspired me as a young African American male who attends The College of Staten Island to see hope in a different way than it is explained in the dictionary. According to the dictionary, hope means "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best". But President Obama definition of hope is to " imagine and fight for". For example, President Barack Obama had a dream that everyone in the Untied States would have free healthcare. He didn't say I hope it will happen one day, no what he did was make speeches to congress and other important people about how no one should be turned down because they don't have healthcare.…