The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s

Martin Luther King Jr. was an effective influential activist that revolutionized our world today with the Civil Rights Movement through his strong ambitions, actions, and powerful speeches. Martin Luther King Jr. was a very influential man. He crafted great speeches and writings that caused a strong change for the Civil Rights. He wrote letters that encouraged people to act and to make a change (Leone, 1996). After this, people started to gain to raise energy for a change in the rights for black African Americans.

The main purpose of a persuasive text is to convince the readers to agree with or support the individual’s point of view. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an emotional and politically influential speech “I Have a Dream…” that includes many persuasive techniques. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. King, both a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist, had an important influence on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Through his involvement, he played a critical role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the South and other areas of that nation.

At this time, and still to this day, he is the youngest person ever to have this award bestowed upon him (260). The next year, on March 21st, Dr. King and three thousand protestors began the march to Selma, Alabama (260). Five days later they completed their goal and fought for their rights. Their efforts were validated when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, which banned literacy tests, allowed the federal government to oversee voting sights, and authorized the investigation of poll taxes (“Voting Rights Act of 1965”). Dr. King’s final victory in his era of revolution was the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (also known as the Fair Housing Act) (Ayers 265).

There were many gains earned after the Civil War seemed lost by the time of World War I because racial violence and lynching reached an all time high. However, both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League (NUL) were founded by blacks and whites during this time. Both of these major civil rights organizations make efforts on the part of blacks and their white allies to insure that the United States provides "freedom and justice to all". The year of Washington's death marked the beginning of the Great Migration from the rural South to the urban North. He is known as one of the best civil rights leaders for the African American people in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

SNCC sought to affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of their purpose. In the violently changing political climate of the 60’s, SNCC struggled to define its purpose as it fought white oppression. Out of SNCC came some of today's black leaders, such as former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Together with hundreds of other students, they left a lasting impact on American history. John Lewis was an influential SNCC leader and is recognized by most as one of the important leaders of the civil rights movement as a whole.

Out of all of his civil rights efforts, the most prominent was the “I Have a Dream” speech, given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the “March on Washington” in 1963. The speech illustrated the issue of racism and provoke the audience to sympathise with the blacks while providing hope to the depressed African-American community. Just under 17 minutes, King influenced the generations and generations of people about his dream for America’s future and planted seeds of anti-racism and racial equality in them. King has employed three rhetorical elements of ethos, pathos and logos which are reinforced with metaphors in his ground-breaking speech. Pathos King utilises Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, a persuasion technique, one of which is pathos.

Martin Luther King is recognized by millions of people as a great leader and he is an inspiring man in our history. Still in this day Martin Luther King is one of the most influential heroes in society. He helped African Americans obtain their rights and liberties. Martin Luther King Jr, was one of the greatest encouraging leaders in the history of our nation. Sometimes a death threat on the phone would limit his strength but he encourage his dreams to bring segregation to an end.

As a result, his Civil Rights Announcement in 1963 became a huge success, and the assassination of him evolved the civil rights problem into a completely new degree. During the time that John F. Kennedy was preparing for his presidency, in the early 1960s, the conflict between blacks and whites had already became overwhelmingly public. African Americans were facing the rejection on voting rights, limitation on public services, unstopping violence, injustice in courts and prejudice in work, education, and almost everywhere (JFK Library). The majority of the leaders in the south claimed that the integration in publi... ... middle of paper ... ...would like to see in the future if he was still alive. The achievement of the death would be remembered as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The March on Washington was the biggest march in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and it was bigger than the Selma to Montgomery march. The March on Washington was an important part of the civil rights movement in other ways less obvious. The March on Washington demanded equality in the South and to remove the Jim Crow law that was put in the South to keep colors separate from whites and make it separate but equal. The march was the biggest peaceful success in the civil rights movement: 200,000 black and white Americans showed up to take part. One of the most memorable speeches was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech which... ... middle of paper ... ...MA TO MONTGOMERY MARCH.

On August 28th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., the African-American civil-rights movement reached its high potential when Martin Luther King spoke to over 250,000 people attending h... ... middle of paper ... ... our nation became one and is a better place because of it. The ?I Have a Dream? speech not only contributed to the civil rights movement, but it is the most influential speech in history. Works Cited Bond, Julian. "Kings 1963 I Have a Dream Speech."