Critical Introduction

Thank you for visiting our blog. We are four University of Maryland Scholars students in English 101S studying various rhetorical devices. We have put a lot of thought and effort into this blog and are very proud of the final product. A Right for Civil Rights examines multiple aspects of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. Racial inequality is an issue that still plagues America today and we thought it would be worthwhile to examine what is now called “The First Civil Rights Movement” and draw our own conclusions as to how far the country has actually progressed since the 1960’s. We believe we are qualified and worthy analysts of these texts because we have practiced analytical skills throughout the semester and are confident in our ability to project our ideas onto others.

We chose these texts because they provide different perspectives on a movement that was incredibly polarizing, hence the need to examine multiple texts. The Civil Rights Bill newspaper and article and the March on Washington protest picture demonstrate the grassroots and legislative aspects of the passing of the Civil Rights Bill respectively.  The protest picture demonstrates the fervent nature of the movement, while the newspaper article offers more of a national perspective on the Civil Rights Bill. Taken as a whole these texts demonstrate that although there was enormous support from Civil Rights Bill from the public, that enthusiasm was not matched by Congress who after much debate seemed to only approve the bill to appease President Johnson. Finally, both texts clearly demonstrate that in order to change social norms, there must be an incredible amount of both hard work and patience, despite the mass protests, it took many years for the Civil Rights Bill to pass Congress, and many today still question its effectiveness.

Our blog is relevant today because we are currently as a nation facing many of the racial perils of the 1960’s, best exemplified by the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and many other unarmed African-Americans. There is also a wealth gap amongst the races, even though economic equality was one of the major goals of the Civil Rights Bill. We believe that much can be learned from the 1960’s about how to close these gaps. We expect readers to come away with a better understanding of how social movements work, and hopefully find hope that we can change the current racial inequalities that still persist.

We first analyzed audience and pathos because we believed that we should methodically contextualize the texts to better serve our readers. Of course every rhetorical appeal is incredibly germane to understanding a specific text, which is why we viewed the appeals equally rather than purely focusing on one. After analyzing the texts, it was clear that logos was used less than the other rhetorical appeals, but we wanted to provide a complete overview for our readers. We last tackled kairos as to give an overall historical context for our readers to walk away with. We also attempted to allocate appeals that each member felt confident in analyzing, to ensure the strongest blog possible.

To quote the great writer George Orwell, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. As this paradox explains as humans we are all inherently equal but this equality has been corrupted by the institutions and systems man has created. It is our duty not just as Americans but as members of the human race to eliminate this persistent inequality. We hope reading this blog can be the first step towards accomplishing that goal.

-Alex, Asiyah, Daniel, Miles