Mike Blair Rhetorical Analysis Essay-Final English 1010 10-22-2013

FIGHT ON Mary Church Terrells speech, What It Means to be Colored in Capitol of the U.S.", was first delivered in Washington, D.C. on October 10, 1906. In this speech, Terrell aims to educate her listeners about the disparity in treatment of (the AfricanAmerican) race. "It is impossible for any white person in the United States, no matter how sympathetic and broad, to realize what life would mean to him if his incentive to effort were suddenly snatched away. Personal anecdotes, contrast, and comparison are techniques Terrell skillfully uses to create a strong, convincing speech. Terrell begins her speech with a personal anecdote describing her first 15 years in the nations capitol, Washington, and how intolerable it was. This technique immediately establishes the speech as informal and personal. It is a great way to capture the listener's attention. Also, this particular statement is used as background information for the first point Terrell makes in the following sentencethat As a colored woman I might enter Washington any night, a stranger in a strange land, and walk miles without finding a place to lay my head." Another anecdote in the essay explains how as a colored woman she would walk from the Capitol to the White House, ravenously hungry and abundantly supplied with money with which to purchase a meal, without finding a single restaurant in which she would be permitted to take a morsel of foods. Anecdotes such as this are

heart straining and tend to strengthen the mood of the essay. Also, it is quite easy for the listeners to relate to personal experience. Another function of anecdotes in this speech is to substantiate and support main ideas. In one paragraph Terrell states, no matter how competent or superior the colored teachers in our public schools may be, they know that they can never rise to the height of a directorship," This is directly followed by the anecdote explaining the Strenuous efforts being made to run Jim Crow cars in the national capitol. The anecdote clearly provides evidence and support for the fact that the colored laborers path to a decent livelihood is by no means smooth and the treatment to the colored people is so disparaging. Shortly after capturing the listener's interest with the introductory anecdote, Terrell begins using contrast. The numerous examples of contrast throughout the essay portray blacks and whites as being drastically different. The colored are thought to be incapable of doing the work as the non-colored are able to do. Terrell uses contrast to illustrate the common anti-color attitudes that the non-colored have, and in doing so, makes it obvious that the non-colored feel superior to the colored. This exactly, Terrell points out, is the barrier to equality between the colored and the non-colored in the Nations Capitol. It is clear to the listener that equality between the races will never exist as long as something is not done. The contrasts also function to support points Terrell makes later concerning the similarities between the colored and non-colored. About midway through the speech, Terrell makes a transition from contrast to comparison. She begins focusing on the idea that the races are the same. She states, Although white and colored teachers are under the same Board of Education and the

system for the children of both races is said to be uniform, prejudice against the colored teachers in the public schools is manifested in a variety of ways. Comparisons such as these smoothly lead Terrell into making one of her strongest comparisonsthat no matter how competent or superior the colored teachers in our public schools may be, they know that they can never rise to the height of a directorship, can never hope to be more than an assistant and receive more than a meager salary therefore, unless the present regime is radically changed. These comparisons, particularly the last one, are shocking and cause the reader to reflect on previous ideas in the speech. Throughout her speech Terrell uses the every man appeal to show that she is also being affected by the racism that is happening because she, too, is African American. This is shown with her constant use of I in her examples to show that it could happen to her and/or others, if it hasnt already. She also uses strong language to bring about emotion in her audience. She uses words like hateful, oppression, hideous, and persecution to not only show her anger towards the situation but to also make the audience more aware of how serious the problem is. After witnessing racism and discrimination throughout much of her life, Terrell had reached a boiling point and on October 10, 1906 when she delivered this famous speech What It Means to be Colored in Capitol of The U.S. at the United Womens Club in Washington, D.C. Through her speech, she showed these examples of how African Americans were oppressed and also successfully brought out emotion in her audience. In Terrells speech, her use of examples supported the thesis of her speech. She explains how other races are acknowledged as regular humans while African Americans are treated as lepers.

Mary Church Terrell used a mixture of many rhetoric tools in her speech to address the problems of racism. With the help of her language and her appeal to everyday people, she was able to get her point across at a more personal level with the audience. To this day this speech is still seen as one of the greatest to be delivered in African American history.