English
How does Kennedy use rhetoric to advance his purpose? Cite evidence from the text in your answer.RFKs Speech Following the Death of MLKBy Senator Robert F. Kennedy1968Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968), served as U.S. Attorney General from 1961 to 1964 before becominga U.S. Senator for New York in 1964. He delivered this speech after the civil rights leader Martin Luther KingJr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. While campaigning for president two months later, Robert Kennedywas assassinated as well. As you read, takes note on how Kennedy uses rhetoric to make his speech morepersuasive.I have bad news for you, for all of our fellowcitizens, and people who love peace all over theworld, and that is that Martin Luther King wasshot and killed tonight.Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love andto justice for his fellow human beings, and hedied because of that effort.In this difficult day, in this difficult time for theUnited States, it is perhaps well to ask what kindof a nation we are and what direction we want tomove in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is thatthere were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, anda desire for revenge. We can move in thatdirection as a country, in great polarization--blackpeople amongst black, white people amongstwhite, filled with hatred toward one another.Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replacethat violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understandwith compassion and love.For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice ofsuch an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling.I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort inthe United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.My favorite poet was Aeschylus.1 He wrote: In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by dropupon the heart until, in our own despair,2against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace ofGod.RFKs Speech Following the Death of MLK by Senator Robert F. Kennedy is in the public domain.What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred;what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, andcompassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within ourcountry, whether they be white or they be black.So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, thatstrue, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer forunderstanding and that compassion of which I spoke.We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; weve had difficult times in the past; we willhave difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is notthe end of disorder.But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to livetogether, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide3inour land.Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of manand make gentle the life of this world.Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.