According to our founding fathers “All men are created equal’’ but it all men weren’t treated the same. Thoreau didn’t believe that people were treated the same in fact he believed that people were under appreciated. Furthermore that people should be able to articulate their opinion in how the government was being used. Henry David Thoreau a man who sparked the civil rights movement, he started this idea that people should be treated equally. Mr. Thoreau comes at the government and he argues that the government should be for the people and of the people but the government isn’t holding up to their part. He wrote a book in jail called Civil Disobedience and he’s arguing that people should have a say in whether their government. Civil Rights. This started this trend of American dissent that involved big civil rights activist such as Dr.Martin Luther King, and Malcom X. They Ideally wanted to end segregation in American and build this bridge too all people that not by the color of your skin or the different shade of your skin color that all people are created equal and should be treated as such.
They believed that if they wanted to sit down and eat with their family that they shouldn’t have to go through the back of the restaurant and eat from a different menu. They want to sit with everyone else like a normal human being. Furthermore if they want to walk on the sidewalk somewhere and a white person is on the same side walk not to let them pass by stepping aside but to walk to their own accord. You couldn’t even look at another white person without being punished. Even though Dr.King and Malcom X had the same goals they tried too achieve it in different ways. Dr.King believed that the peaceful Jesus way was going to changed the problem. Malcom X believed that you should fight back aggressively with your words and physically with your hands. Both methods that Dr.King and Malcom X used helped bring some change worked in their own way.
Two examples in which Dr.King and Malcom X used different methods to persuade the people to stop segregation and inequality was through their writing and their speeches. One of the most famous Malcom X speech was The Black Revolution speech. Malcom X used ethos, pathos and logos to persuade “The People” emotionally, logically and to awaken “The People”. In his speech he talks about how us black people should be separated indefinitely if we can’t be together and he used God as a reference. As stated from Malcom X “And if his sheep can’t be safely integrated with goats they certainly aren’t safe integrated with wolves”.
Malcom X is using logos and ethos to persuade you to think that. If God couldn’t mix sheep with wolves then logically you couldn’t mix two races that can seem to get along at all. He is also relating the sheep to black people and the wolves as white people in his speech. He calls the Black people “Black Sheep” and the whites “White wolves” and comparing us to how sheep and wolves don’t get along in real life. Dr. King on the other hand in his letter from Birmingham Jail took a totally different approach. The way king used his words and his intellect in which the way he wrote the letter is amazing. As Stated from Dr.King ‘I guess it is easy for those who have never felt ‘the stinging darts of segregation to say ‘wait.’ ‘But when you have seen vicious mobs ‘lynch your mothers and fathers at will ‘and drown your sister and brothers at whim; ‘when you have seen hate-filled policemen ‘curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill ‘your black brothers and sisters with impunity; ‘when you see the vast majority of your 20 million ‘Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage ‘of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; ‘when you suddenly find your tongue twisted ‘and your speech stammering as you seek to explain ‘to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go ‘to the public amusement park that has ‘just been advertised on television; ‘when you take a cross-country drive ‘and find it necessary to sleep night after night ‘in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile ‘because no motel will accept you; ‘when you are humiliated day in and day out ‘by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored,’ ‘then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.’
Dr. King used pathos and logos to persuade the readers during this statement from him. He starts of by saying that it hard to under stand the consequences of segregation when your not getting segregated. When you haven’t seen your own parents get lynched and hate filled policemen brutally beat and kill your brothers and sisters. Nor explain why you couldn’t do this or that because of the segregated amusement park that was advertised on tv.
Martin Luther King’s letter was more effective than Malcom X even though logically Malcom X’s position makes more sense. On the other hand being raised under a Christian background its not Jesus like to be like Malcom X. Also Dr. King had this way in which he wrote this letter is unexplainable. Reading the letter you can get a better understanding on how to safely get your point across with out tension.
A lot has changed since Dr.King and Malcom X been alive but it hasn’t solved the main problem.
