Read/review the following resources for this activity:
Social Movements are only as important as the person leading them. The person(s) leading a social movement must have charisma and be able to captivate an audience. Political scientists and historians are taught to analyze body language, especially during debates and speeches.
For this assignment, you will watch Dr Martin Luther King’s I Have a DreamLinks to an external site. speech and a speech by Alicia Garza of the Black Lives Matter movementLinks to an external site. and answer questions listed below. Pay special attention to the following aspects in the two speeches.
Martin Luther’s speech outlines the racial injustice experienced by Blacks in America. He encourages the audience to hold the country accountable for the founding promises of freedom, equality, and justice. The audience is there to demand the US government honor the words of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal. Luther dreams that all men and women, whether white or Black, will sit together as equals, and all forms of racial injustice will end. He encourages his audience to pursue civil rights by non-violent means and not rest until all Blacks can enjoy the same freedoms as White people.
Alicia Garza’s speech focuses on the prejudices and racial injustice experienced by minority groups, including African Americans and immigrant workers. She speaks of anti-black racism, exploitation of immigrant labor, and state-sanctioned violence against Blacks. Alicia also highlights the socioeconomic differences between African Americans and Whites and how the historical racial discrimination still affects their lives today. For example, she states that the New Deal excluded domestic and agricultural workers from federal labor protections, explaining why modern-day domestic and agricultural workers do not enjoy the same benefits and protections as employees in other sectors. Most of these workers are immigrants, Africans, and African Americans. Their labor is still exploited because the labor protection laws do not cover them. She issues a call to action to the audience to join the Black Lives Matter movement and fight for equality, dignity, and respect for all people.
Both Alicia Garza and Dr. King use emotional appeals to capture their audience. Alicia Garza mentions the names of India Clarke, (a teenager who was murdered for being transgender), Jonathan Sanders (murdered while being restrained by a police officer), Jonathan Davis (an innocent bystander shot outside an apartment building), etc. These individuals’ deaths caused public outrage, and mentioning their names would provoke an emotional reaction in the audience.
Dr. King also uses emotional appeals to capture the audience. King stated, “Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice” (King, 2017). This statement is an emotional appeal because it provokes thoughts of how badly white people treated Blacks, causing an emotional reaction in the audience. Both leaders used personal experiences to provoke the audience’s emotional reactions. The leaders also use repetitions such as anaphora to evoke emotion and drive emphasis. For example, King repeats the phrase “I have a dream” at the start of every paragraph, while Alicia repeats the phrase “ignited by the people who murdered like”… to emphasize the injustice of the criminal justice system (Garza, 2015).
Both leaders also capture the audience through charisma. Northouse (2019) indicates that charismatic leaders have the motivation to achieve social power (p.20). Dr. King and Alicia Garza have these traits, evidenced by their vision for racial equality. Dr. King and Alicia Garza are visionary, dreaming that their audience will achieve racial equality one day. Racial equality is a source of social power. King and Alicia influence their audience to achieve this social power by articulating their vision, expressing confidence in it, and communicating high expectations. These traits demonstrate both leaders’ charisma.
The main difference between the leaders’ speech delivery styles is that King’s style is more engaging than Alicia’s. King delivers his message in a dramatic, extemporized, and mellifluous voice. Duffy and Besel (2010) say that King’s speech was more drama than poetry and needed to be seen and heard for one to experience the full effect. King delivered his sentences extemporaneously, maintaining constant eye contact with the audience and emphasizing his message through arm movements and tone of voice. The speech was wedded with visuals, including Lincoln’s statue, the audience’s reactions, and King’s determined countenance.
In contrast, Alicia’s speech is less engaging. She makes very little eye contact with the audience and maintains most of her attention on the notes rather than on the audience. She uses hand gestures in her speech but not to emphasize her message.
King evoked the memory of Abraham Lincoln’s promise by delivering the speech at Lincoln’s Memorial. Duffy and Besel (2010) indicate that King’s television audience was most impacted by the interplay between King’s speech and frequent cutaways of Lincoln’s statue. The authors stated, “To those in the television medium who recorded the speech … the stone statue of the Great Emancipator amplified the combined effect of King’s lyrical words, mellifluous voice, and determined countenance (Duffy & Besel, 2010). This analysis demonstrates that the location selected by King supported his message.
Social media audiences interact with various messages through features such as likes, comments, or favorites. Hall (2018) indicates that actions such as likes, favorites, and re-tweets obscure the social experience or richness and nuance of social interaction. However, another study by Clark (2001) indicates that the public speaking abilities of the speaker do not change for both the traditional and online formats. Therefore, the messaging might remain the same, but the social experience will be different.
The audience of Dr. King and Alicia Garza are related because they both have experienced racial injustice in America. The audiences of both leaders also support the cause of their social movements. King’s audience supports the civil rights movement, while Garza’s supports the Black Lives Matter movement.
Clark, R. A., & Jones, D. (2001). A comparison of traditional and online formats in a public speaking course. Communication Education, 50(2), 109-124.
Duffy, B. K., & Besel, R. D. (2010). Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” and the politics of cultural memory: An apostil. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews, 23(3), 184-191. https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=comm_fac
Hall, J. A. (2018). When is social media use social interaction? Defining mediated social interaction. New media & society, 20(1), 162-179. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/21340/Hall_2016_NewMedia.pdf?sequence=1
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (p. xxiii). E-Content Generic Vendor.
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