Prescribed Question: How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?
The Eulogy for the Young Victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing (Eulogy for Martyred Children) was a speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the time of a funeral service on the September 18th, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama that was held for three young, female victims. The victims: Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley were killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing on Sunday, September 15th, 1963 as an act of white supremacist terrorism. The speech begins as a typical eulogy by commemorating the three victims, but slowly turns into that of King’s other work: a persuasive speech that makes a strong political statement in addressing what the bombing and its effects mean for the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
Eulogies include specific conventions that differentiate them from other speeches: a brief…show more content… To directly addressed what needs to be done by the people in order to eradicate events like the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and facing death as a prompt for change rather than grief, King’s eulogy turns into a persuasive political speech. King gives a brief overview of the girls’ lives, mentioning that they died as martyred heroines and children of God. From this, he transitions into addressing everyone who indirectly allowed this act of white supremacist terrorism to occur and uses it as motivation to push on fighting for equality, rather than responding in a way that would please the perpetrators of the AA Civil Rights movement. While loosely taking on the structure of a eulogy, the Eulogy for Martyred Children also acts as a strong persuasive political
