"Speech Is My Hammer" - A Response Filled With Rhetoric

         In Michael Eric Dyson’s, “Speech Is My Hammer,” a remembrance of Martin Luther King’s activism, he undoubtably calls upon rhetoric to emphasize his point. Most effectively, Dyson uses pathos to invest the readers in the message that he works to send. Immediately, Dyson states that King’s, “words still live in our memories” and that, “King also processed the gift to translate love into concrete political action.” These statements surely remind the reader of King’s actions and thus his immortality. This emotion is emphasized as Dyson believes that the reader can take these memories and work to emulate King’s activism towards social equality. 

       To further spread his message, Dyson also effectively recognizes his audience. Upon further research, I learned that Dyson is both a professor of sociology and an ordained Baptist Minister. Knowing this and knowing that King was also a Baptist Minister further explains the religious references. Though Dyson analyzes King’s legacy in general, an excerpt of “Letter from Birmingham Jail” precedes Dyson’s piece in the Rhetoric and Civic Life textbook. In this letter, King directly addresses his fellow clergymen. Just as King recognizes his audience as religious in nature, Dyson does so as well. However, his piece still has meaning for a variety of audiences. Dyson recalls that King made basic claims of “justice, love, and power” and how they must coexist for true effectiveness. Without a doubt, the remembrance of basic civil liberties and the good that King did in the social, economic, and political realms surely speaks to numerous audiences. Though King worked within the black church, his message, and thus Dyson’s, can be heard by all people.