Malcolm X's The Ballot Or The Bullet

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Malcolm X was one of the most influential civil rights activist during the 20th century. And on April 3rd, 1964 X broadcasted one of his most influential speeches “The Ballot or The Bullet”, which had over roughly two thousand people at a lost for words. In this presentation X discussed the innumerable obstacles that blacks faced every day living in America, and he wanted encourage other blacks to unite and fight racial inequality. Blacks didn’t have a lot of say in who to vote for and had little to no rights and were treated like second class citizens. Thus challenging blacks in America to exercise their constitutional rights, demand they be treated equally, and to ultimately know their worth.
X uses several rhetorical devices throughout his …show more content…
X used pathos and logos to appeal to his audience when he stated that “Not only did we give our free labor, we gave our blood. Every time he had a call to arms, we were the first ones in uniform. We died on every battlefield the white man had. We have made a greater sacrifice than anybody who’s standing up in America today. We have made a greater contribution and collected less. Civil Rights, for those of us whose philosophy is black nationalism, means: “Give it to us now. Don’t wait next year. Give it to us yesterday, and that’s not fast enough”. The same white people that kidnapped blacks from their native country, brought them to a foreign country, stripped them of everything, forced them to work for free, raped their women and children, broke up families, and so much more, are the same ones asking blacks to help fight their battles. Even with blacks fighting side by side with whites in wars that they either caused or got involved in, and dying on the exact same battlefield as them, they were still treated like second class citizens, sometimes worse than that. Malcolm felt that if blacks were good enough to die for a country that wasn’t even theirs, then they were good enough to be treated like everyone else. And the time for a revolution was well
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