Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The use of ethos, pathos and logos was evident in both Fannie Lou Hamer’s and Stokely Carmichael’s speeches. In various ways each aspect of rhetoric enhanced the speakers speeches and differentiated speeches that were based on the same ideas of civil rights. The use of ethos, pathos, and logos made the two speeches not only unique but very effective for their very different audiences.

Fannie Lou Hammer’s speech shared her experiences and raised awareness about civil rights, in order to sit on the Credentials Committee in the Democratic National Convention and put the incumbent out of office. Many aspects of Hammer’s speech enhanced her ethos, giving credibility to her speech. One aspect that was effective in her speech was the use of her first person experiences, which vividly portrayed her harsh and unfair treatment in jail after being arrested. These first person experiences gave her credibility, by making people see that she knows what she is talking about and that she has experienced first hand what so many African Americans of the time were suffering through on a daily basis. The use of quotes and exact dates also enhanced her ethos, pathos, and logos alike. These enhanced her logos, because by giving exact facts about the events she experienced she showed that it really happened, for example, she explained that on “August 31st” and had “traveled twenty-six miles” to be arrested by Indianola Highway Patrolman. The fact that she tells us exactly who arrested her, when and why gives “facts” to the case enhancing her logos. Also, the vivid description she gives of her experience in jail enhances her pathos because her listeners could not help but feel sympathetic towards the beatings and rapeings she experienced. Her ethos was also enhanced by this because having facts, quotes, and events makes the things that happened more realistic and likely to be true adding to her credibility. Hammer’s style of speaking enhances her ethos because she speaks in a very common simple matter that is easy to understand by the Committee she is trying to persuade.

Stokely Carmichael was speaking to a small, liberal, predominantly white academic audience at Berkeley, California. Carmichael, like Hammer, has a strong ethos for different reasons. Speaking to an academic community, Carmichael formed a strong ethos by giving his background as an experienced leader; working for Martin Luther King Jr. and becoming a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. To the academic community this was recognizable experience in leading for promoting activism through the SNCC and the “black panthers.” He also builds his ethos by making educated jokes to ease the tension throughout his intense speech. He is forwardly criticizing whites, and the treatment of blacks, so by throwing in jokes he becomes someone who is easier to relate to. To enhance his logos, Carmichael relates to various experts by name-dropping many existential philosophers. This not only showed that he was educated, but also shows that he has done his research on the topic. The fact that he shows that he is educated on the topic also enhances his ethos, along with the fact that he uses complex sentences and a vast vocabulary. Finally, he explains that African Americans are doing the jobs that no one else would do, and that the myths of the “American Dream” was full of lies and that it was only conceivable by wealthy white males. This effectively provides pathos to his speech to further convince his audience to change the way they act and make it easier for African Americans to have the same rights as white males do.