Rhetorical Analysis Of Dr. Martin Luther King's Speech

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On April 4th, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech about the negative effects on America from the Vietnam War. To persuade his audience that involvement in the Vietnam war is a negative thing for America, Dr. King uses irony, ethos, and compels to the audience's sympathy to build his argument. One way that Dr. King builds his argument about the negative effect of the Vietnam War is using irony. For example, Dr. King states that “We were taking the black young men… and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem”. The irony that Dr. King uses shows his audience that it’s almost morally wrong for America to send our people to fight in a war for other countries’ liberties, when they don’t have their own equal liberties in their home land. Dr. King’s use of irony makes the readers think about how logically incorrect the Vietnam War is for America. …show more content…
King builds his argument is by the use of ethos. Ethos is a means of proving credibility of the author to the audience. Ethos are an important part of an argument because they can show how valid the author’s information and points are. In one part of his speech, Dr. King makes a statement that points out that violence is not the answer, though he has found that violence is what most people resort to in order to get their point across. Dr. King says that he has “experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years”. The fact that Dr. King tells us how he has gathered his information, and that it comes from personal experience, makes his argument much more effective because it shows the audience that his information is

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