As Equal We Stand Rhetorical Analysis

Words: 872
Pages: 4

As Equals We Stand
In the 1960s, this was a time of racial unrest as civil rights were harder to obtain for certain individuals, mainly African-Americans. On March 7, 1965, civil rights in Selma were being pushed as there was the death of a protester. The protest was over African-American voting rights, however, many African-Americans stayed quiet as they lived in fear of being harassed. Tests were given to determine civil rights, these were nearly impossible as they included things such as stating the entire U.S Constitution. In Washington, DC on March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B Johnson, an advocate of citizen’s rights, acknowledged the joint session of congress as he felt a duty to his citizens to address “the issue of equal rights” faced by those whose rights were harder to obtain, in order to urge people to take action against discrimination. He wanted to be perceived as someone who stands up for inequality while maintaining a relatable position to the nation as he worked to reshape the previous attitudes of Americans. LBJ uses many rhetorical devices such as, appeal to authority, Biblical and historical allusions, emotion of equality, categorizing of the audience, narration, comparison and contrast, repetition, rhetorical questions and parallelism, to get his point across that inequality is a problem that has been dragged
…show more content…
He was more passionate about this civil rights issue than most of the other Presidents showed, this was more personal for Johnson as he was taken back to his roots. By addressing the Congress in such a manner, he risked losing Presidential support of Congress and fellow Americans. However, he was very successful in the outcome of his arguments and the rhetorical devices he used. Lyndon B Johnson changed the guidelines of this time period and fought to urge people to help and guide others to stop the inequality in the