Rhetorical Analysis Of Jackie Robinson's Letter To President Lyndon B. Johnson

Jackie Robinson wrote this letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War, employing rhetoric techniques to sway President Johnson. Robinson chooses the purpose, speaker, audience, and subject of this text with care. He also appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos to persuade the President and other readers to his view.

Robinson’s letter is quite compelling and effective in demonstrating its purpose. This piece features the then current Civil Rights Movement and the President’s dedication to said movement. The purpose, of Robinson’s letter is to assure President Johnson that despite Martin Luther King Jr.’s anti-war protests many in the black community still supported him. Robinson also wrote the letter persuade and make sure the President would continue to

Then, the speaker of this letter is Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player in America. However, without Robinson as the speaker this text wouldn’t be preserved as it is today, specifically if the speaker was a little known person of color or even a white person speaking on the behalf of the black community. The audience includes President Lyndon B. Johnson directly; then Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York; and lastly the people of America, the black community, and those fighting for civil rights. This audience is important because if Robinson hadn’t written to the President, and indirectly to the others, then, similarly with the speaker, the text might not be as preserved or well-known nor carry the same influence it has. The subject, as mentioned before for the text’s purpose, is the Civil Rights Movement and the President’s involvement in it during the Vietnam War, which is affects the text as Robinson is a