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Sally Olivas
Dr. John Edlund
English 581
19 March 2014
King and Kairos
In this day and age, the saying goes that timing is everything. Apparently, this philosophy
is not new, as Aristotle advocated the same idea centuries ago. Kairos consists of the idea that
there is the right moment and place, the right time and situation for rhetoric to be effective. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. also knew this, and he used it to his advantage to secure civil rights for
minorities in the 1960s. Aristotle and Dr. King came together in my English 104 class this
Winter to help my students develop deeper analysis for their own rhetoric-analysis essay.
Kairos has been defined as the right or opportune time to do something, or right measure
in doing something (Kinneavy qtd in Kinneavy 433). It means the writer or speaker the rhetor
has chosen the right time to present his idea to have the most-effective impact. If the purpose to
rhetoric is to persuade, then one needs to be, as we say, in the right place at the right time. This is
kairos.
According to Kinneavy, Aristotle applied kairos to all facets of his rhetorical situation.
Kinneavy interprets this to be applying the rules of the art of rhetoric to the particular situation
at issue (435). Aristotle, Kinneavy says, applied kairos to his legal, political and ceremonial
rhetoric, as well as his rhetorical proofs of ethos, pathos, logos (438). For instance, It is only
in a particular case toward a particular individual at a particular time that true legal justice can be
found when kairos can truly occur (436).
Aristotle also applied this concept of kairos to his discussion of anger, Take, for

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instance, the emotion of anger: here we must discover (1) what the state of mind of angry people
is, (2) who the people are with whom they usually get angry, and (3) on what grounds they get
angry with them (Aristotle 214). Kinneavy calls number three the occasions under which one
gets angry, connecting this to kairos (438).
Dr. King, too, knew about anger and how to gather it and use its intensity to his
advantage. He also knew about frustration, exhaustion, and fear. But that was not all he knew.
He also knew hope.
He knew pathos.
Further, Dr. King understood pathos or logos or ethos had no power without kairos.
His kairos manifested its best face on August 28, 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. Decades of fighting, decades of work, decades of hope led to that day and that
place. If kairos had not been present, our world may not be what it is. The occasion was right. So
many factors had to work on that day for Dr. King to achieve his purpose, and they did work
because of kairos.
This concept is what I wanted my
The idea of King and the Movements volunteers
being mediators because the volunteers, not just
King, were a big factor as to why
the Movement was effective is shown here.

students to grasp before they wrote

their rhetorical-analysis essays. Their
prompt: Analyze Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.s purpose and argument in his

I Have a Dream speech. Then, detail which rhetorical strategies he uses to develop said
purpose and argument. Why are these effective or why are they not effective? I felt if my students
could understand kairos and how Dr. King used it that fateful day, their analysis would be richer
and deeper.

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I began this lesson with the rhetorical square a strategy I learned from Dr. Marilyn
Elkins in one of her trainings for The College Board. The square, also known as PAPA or AP
squared, contains purpose, argument, persona and audience. Inside the square go the language
elements like diction, syntax and figurative language. From here, the way I have taught this
lesson in the past, the students read Dr. Kings I Have a Dream speech for homework, and we
watch the video of the speech the next day in class. Then we move into analyzing the rhetoric.
This time, however, I introduced the concept of kairos before they read the speech and before we
watched the video. I wanted them to have some concept of the environment in which the speech
was given: the political, societal, cultural aspects. I felt this would help them better analyze Dr.
Kings rhetoric. Most students have some idea of what was happening in the Civil Rights
Movement, but I wanted them to have more than some idea.
I created a PowerPoint with photographs, headlines and political cartoons from 1963 in
America. The images are these: A picture of a somber Dr. King; a newspaper headline from the
Daily Herald Telegraph March Gives New Impetus To Struggle of Negroes; a photograph of
a German Shepherd police dog attacking a young black man in Birmingham, Alabama. (This
picture is credited for raising awareness of the true struggles of minorities and was aggressively
used by the Movement, according to Malcolm Gladwell.); a newspaper headline (newspaper
unknown) Rocks Hurled At Police After Negro Lawyers Home Bombed; a photograph of
whites and blacks with arms crossed, holding hands; a newspaper headline from the New York
Times 200,000 March for Civil Rights in Orderly Washington Rally: President Sees Gain for
Negro: a photograph of Dr. King with President John F. Kennedy and a few senators; a political
cartoon whose caption reads March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and only the box
next to the word Freedom is checked off; an aerial photograph of the mass crowd at the March

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on Washington; a political cartoon of a Caucasian man trying to hold back an African-American

man in a suit, and the caption reads, You dont understand, boy - youre supposed to just shuffle
along; and the final slide is of three signs: Drinking Fountain: White and Colored; Whites Only
Beyond This Point Help Wanted, No Irish Need Apply; We Serve Whites Only: No Spanish or
Mexicans.
I showed the PowerPoint slowly without comment, stopping for a few minutes on each
slide. I told the students to take notes on what they saw, what they thought was going on, and
what their reaction was. Then I showed it again, this time stopping at each slide and discussing it.
We talked about what each slide was, the circumstances surrounding it, and the pathos and ethos
each created. Also discussed was the logos of each, if that term applied.
Students comments and reactions were varied: They were surprised at how large the
crowd was that day at the March on Washington when Dr. King gave his now-famous speech
The photograph of the whites and
The March on Washington serves as an actant,
according to Latours definition.

blacks holding hands surprised them.

The most reaction, however, came

from the last slide with the signs prohibiting minorities. My students thought the Civil Rights
Movement was all about rights for African Americans and were not aware all minorities were
discriminated against. Further, they questioned whether Irish people are white, and if so, why
they were excluded, which led to a discussion on immigration.
We talked about immigration during the 1950s and 1960s and now and how this is still
very much an issue for many. I pointed out the kairos of each era the timing for both eras, the
situation for both eras and how kairos impacts political decisions. They began, I think, to see
how vital kairos is to persuasion and obtaining goals.

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In addition to the background of each image, my students and I discussed the visual
rhetoric of the images. Starting with the first image the photograph of a serious Dr. King we
talked about the pathos of the image, and if it increased or decreased his ethos. They said he
looked tired, frustrated, determined,
Latour says all networks need leaders or
spokerspersons, as he calls them, and Id
discuss Kings leardership role in the Movement
and in what Latour calls Kings network.

angry. I asked if this was a man they

would trust, and they all said yes. Next,
we talked about the photograph of the

police dog apparently attacking a young black man. Gladwell spends nearly a whole chapter on
this photo in his most-recent book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling
Giants, so the analysis I guided my students with came largely from Gladwells analysis. We
talked about how the dogs leash is taut the white officer holding it appears to be trying to call
the dog off. We also talked about how all the people around the officers and young man are not
upset or even the least bit concerned, let alone alarmed. These two images generated the most
discussion after the slide with the signs.
Moving from the visual rhetoric, we discussed the timing of these photographs: If King
were alive today and that photo were taken today, would it have a different meaning? Would it
have any meaning? This is kairos. Does the photo of the police dog have a different meaning for
us today than it did for those when it was taken? Or, more importantly, is the meaning the same?
What impact does kairos have with such forceful elements as photographs?
I chose to compile a PowerPoint because I felt having my students see images of the time
period would be powerful. Hearing about the time and reading about it are also potent, but there
is much strength in a photograph, not to mention the headlines and political cartoons of the era. I
thought this strategy would give them a really good sense of the kairos Dr. King was working

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with. I also chose not to say anything the first time I showed the PowerPoint so as to give my
students time to really see them without distraction and to process the message the rhetoric of
each image. However, I felt having no discussion at all would not be beneficial, so I showed the
slides again and initiated the discussion.
My students papers had several examples taken from the slides. They applied these
examples to all three rhetorical strategies: ethos, logos and pathos. For example, one student
wrote:
Police brutality was common in the nineteen-sixties, minorities could not even go
to the police. Police during that time did not care if they [the minorities] had not
done anything wrong, they still were sent to jail. He [King] wanted to point out
that police represented the law but with what they were doing showed that law
was corrupted by ignoring the rights of minorities. (Student 1)
The student used this as an example of logos. Clearly, what she says can be seen to stem from
the Associated Press photograph of the high school student getting attacked by the police dog.
This connects to what Dr. King says in his speech about police brutality, Some of you have
come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and
staggered by the winds of police brutality (King).
Several students cited examples from the last slide, which, as I mentioned, garnered the
most discussion. This slide was the one with the signs stating Whites Only. One student wrote,
For example, blacks cannot enter certain private businesses because of their skin color. Blacks
cannot attain certain jobs because of their skin color (Student 2). He used this as an example of
logos. Dr. King also refers to these signs in his speech, We can never be satisfied as long as our

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children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating For Whites
Only (King). I feel having seen the signs for themselves really emphasized the caustic
environment of the time for my students; this was clear from their reactions.
Another student also referred to the signs, At a young age, they are not able to
understand why they cannot eat in the same places or use the same restroom as white people.
They will be robbed of their selfhood and dignity with out even knowing it, thinking that this
behavior is normal (Student 3). She used this as an example of pathos, saying King evokes the
audiences emotions because No parent would want that for his or her child, any mother and
father would want to see their child grow up to have equal opportunities.
A fourth student referred to the signs, using them as an example of pathos, All the For
Whites Only signs have been stripped off of all the water fountains, bathrooms and cafes, but
their shadows are still there in the mind of some (Student 4). This is an interesting comment
because she connects the progress Dr. King made with the progress she feels we still need to
make today. This is kairos. She further writes, Pathos is one of the strongest elements of
persuasion used to convince audiences and Martin Luther King Jr.s usage of it makes his speech
more influential.
I purposely chose slides that
Latour talks of networks that trace and inscribe,
And the Movement did both.

would coincide with Dr. Kings words

in this speech. I wanted my students to

see what Dr. King was saying was documented; I wanted them to see for themselves what that
era was like. I dont think we should take what anyone says as gospel, and this is something I
want my students to leave my class with: Even what Dr. King said needs to be substantiated.

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The purpose of the PowerPoint was to establish Dr. Kings kairos. I chose the images I
did to create a sketch, if you will, of the time period and the societal environment. The leaders of
the Civil Rights Movement had been struggling for rights since the mid-1950s. Year after year,
events, words, emotions headed into the 1960s. Some would say barreled into the 60s; some
would say crawled into the 60s. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 could not have happened in the 1950s. Some would argue they
would not have happened without the March on Washington and Dr. Kings powerful I Have a
Dream speech, which took place in August 1963.
The reason these laws were passed when they were is, in part, due to it finally being the
right time. Society was ready; well, some in society were ready. Congress was ready. Presidents
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were ready. Dr. King knew this firsthand because he
was directly responsible for getting them ready. He knew the time was right, and he capitalized
on this. As Kinneavy writes, Smith (1986) defined kairic as a season when something
appropriately happens that cannot happen just anytime . . . to a time that marks an opportunity
which may not recur (Kinneavy 434). In fact, Dr. King says in his speech the time for change is
now:
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the
tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of
democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of
segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation

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from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the
time to make justice a reality for all of Gods children. (King)

The importance of networks and their connections is

something Latour spends a lot of time discussing.
King agreed with the idea of urgency and maintaining
the Movements intensity and connections.

In the moment of kairos, Dr. King

brought all his rhetorical weapons
ethos, logos, pathos, diction, figurative
language, syntax, parallelism,

repetition and in that moment - in the right moment, in the ready moment - it all came together,
and he was able to achieve his purpose of attaining rights for minorities.
The next time I teach this paper, I will include kairos in the prompt. I think it was
beneficial to discuss it, but it will be better absorbed by my students if they have to understand it,
analyze it, explain it. This was the first time I taught this concept, and I think it was a good first
step, but in hindsight, I could have had my students go deeper into this idea.
In teaching my students how to analyze this speech rhetorically, infusing that discussion
with kairos only benefits them by making their analysis stronger. Knowing the time period and
occasion of Dr. Kings speech provides background, and this background gives them a better
understanding of the rhetorical devices Dr. King uses. Knowing the logos that Dr. King brings up
gives my students a different perspective through which they can see the logos and see that the
examples are, in fact, logos. Hearing Dr. King talk of the horrors of that era remains different
than seeing examples of that era from outside sources. In this lesson, my students can see why
Dr. King and others were so emotional. They can see and feel and understand his pathos. This,
then, gives them a better analysis, and that is, of course, the goal a stronger rhetorical-analysis
paper.

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Works Cited
Aristotle. From Rhetoric. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings From Classical Times to the
Present. Ed. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg. Massachusetts. Bedford/St. Martins,
2001. 179-240. Print.
Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. New
York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013. Print.
King, Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream. Washington, D.C. 28 Aug. 1963. Speech.
Kinneavy, James L. and Catherine R. Eskin.Kairos in Aristotles Rhetoric. Written
Communication 17. (2000): 432-44. Web.
Kinneavy, James L. Kairos: A Neglected Concept in Classical Rhetoric. Rhetoric and Praxis:
The Contribution of Classical Rhetoric to Practical Reasoning. (1986): 79-105. Web.
Student 1. Student Paper. California Polytechnic University Pomona, 2014. Print.
Student 2. Student Paper. California Polytechnic University Pomona, 2014. Print.
Student 3. Student Paper. California Polytechnic University Pomona, 2014. Print.
Student 4. Student Paper. California Polytechnic University Pomona, 2014. Print.