Lynching or trial by mob has been a popular way to punish upstarts in America for hundreds of years. According to history and legend, Judge Charles Lynch, was the first to coin the term for the practice in North America; during the mid-1700s. This method, rule and trial by mob, has been recorded throughout history; since the dawn of man. Whether you look at the mob that sent Christ to the cross or the pogroms in imperial Russia in the 1800s, this method of justice is timeless. In the piece “Lynch Law in America”, by Ida B. Wells, Mrs. Wells presents to the audience, a problem. This piece was released in January of the year 1900, in the city of Chicago. Mrs. Wells brings forth an emotional, graphic, history on lynching that tugs at the moral
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Wells appealed to the emotions of the readers, as well as presenting information in a logical way. There are three, primary, ancient Greek classifications for rhetoric. The classifications are Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Logos represents reasoning based in logic and reason. Ethos appeals to ethically to the reader . Finally, Pathos appeals to the needs and emotional sensitivity of the audience. (Crowley and Hawhee 12, 118) Mrs. Wells appeals to the audience through the methods of Logos and Pathos, but mostly Pathos. Through the welling up of emotional wording, and the base of logical reasoning, Mrs. Wells informs the audience of the fears her people live …show more content…
During the first time I read this piece, I felt anger. I was angry from the thought that people from my home state of Texas had stooped to such low levels as to violently harm and execute people just because of the color of their skin and social class. Upon the second reading, I felt sad; these people were judged and executed solely because they were different, and because the mob declared them to be guilty. I am of firm belief that there must be an authority and voting body to pass judgement on an individual, fairly. The strategies and wording that the author used was very effective and worked in order to sway me, a Southern born man living in the modern era, to her side. This argument made by Ida B. Wells matters because it chronicles an ugly side of American justice, from yesteryear. It is said that those that do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it. As the United States moves forward, into this new era with a new president, I pray that we will never go back to this barbaric form of
Wells appealed to the emotions of the readers, as well as presenting information in a logical way. There are three, primary, ancient Greek classifications for rhetoric. The classifications are Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Logos represents reasoning based in logic and reason. Ethos appeals to ethically to the reader . Finally, Pathos appeals to the needs and emotional sensitivity of the audience. (Crowley and Hawhee 12, 118) Mrs. Wells appeals to the audience through the methods of Logos and Pathos, but mostly Pathos. Through the welling up of emotional wording, and the base of logical reasoning, Mrs. Wells informs the audience of the fears her people live …show more content…
During the first time I read this piece, I felt anger. I was angry from the thought that people from my home state of Texas had stooped to such low levels as to violently harm and execute people just because of the color of their skin and social class. Upon the second reading, I felt sad; these people were judged and executed solely because they were different, and because the mob declared them to be guilty. I am of firm belief that there must be an authority and voting body to pass judgement on an individual, fairly. The strategies and wording that the author used was very effective and worked in order to sway me, a Southern born man living in the modern era, to her side. This argument made by Ida B. Wells matters because it chronicles an ugly side of American justice, from yesteryear. It is said that those that do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it. As the United States moves forward, into this new era with a new president, I pray that we will never go back to this barbaric form of