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Essay: A Bridge to the Future: A Day of Remembrance in Selma and Obama’s Call to Action

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  • Published: 15 September 2019*
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A Bridge to the Future: A Day of Remembrance in Selma and Obama’s Call to Action

Barack Obama’s Selma speech on March 7, 2015 over the Edmund Pettus Bridge is a perfect example of the use of various persuasive techniques. The speech takes place in Selma, Alabama on the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in which a large volunteer group led by the local sheriff viciously beat and injured 80 civil rights marchers led by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC) Chairman John Lewis (Benson et al.). The speech effectively makes use of this critical moment in the history of our country to not only encourage and inspire but also to persuade Americans to become more active in their communities and truly value their right to vote.

A major event in the course of our history, the Selma to Alabama civil rights marches were for many a true and shocking picture of the harsh conditions faced by the black minority in the segregated south. These marches were spurred on by an attempt to increase the black voice in the political process- with only 3 percent of eligible blacks in Selma’s Dallas County registered to vote by 1963, the SNCC took it upon itself to mobilize efforts and register more minorities to vote(Benson). They were met with much police intimidation under the county sheriff, James G. Clark and decided to make a full-blown voter registration campaign along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.- this campaign is what became the march to Selma(Benson). The initial attempt known as “Bloody Sunday” received horrendously violent backlash from groups led by Clarke and these vicious beatings were recorded and brought national attention to the plight of the black community, eventually leading to the signing of the Voting Rights Act under President Lyndon B. Johnson(Benson).

By drawing from the problems encountered during this time, Obama is able to successfully tie to present day issues and connect the solutions of the past to potential solutions moving forward. The same issues faced that spurred action during the Civil Rights era of the right to vote, police brutality, poverty, and job insecurity were given modern day relevance by Obama’s speech and tied to events like Ferguson, and facts about our current voter turnout. By doing so and using various persuasive techniques discussed in this paper, Obama is able to shift the event from purely reflection of the past to a call to action in the present.

According to the text, nonverbal communication is the exchange of meaning using anything other than words (Adrignola, Ronocdh, Spaynton). Albert Mehrabian found that nonverbal communication actually constitutes 93 percent of the information conveyed to the audience- 55 percent of the information conveyed by the face and 38 percent conveyed by vocalics (“Principles of Human Communication” 452). Obama makes use of various nonverbal elements given by the text as features of good delivery including conversational style, eye contact, vocalics, rate, pauses, and dress. A particular form of nonverbal communication is the use of the body and facial movements to express meaning known as kinesics (Adrignola, Ronocdh, Spaynton). He makes use of this by maintaining a sincere expression which is complimented by his dress and self-presentation- his black suit and neutral tie portray the message of seriousness and urgency. He uses objects by standing behind a podium with the seal of the presidency which remind the audience of his authority and political position.

Obama’s speech is likely so effective because of the careful planning and preparation that obviously went into it. This type of preparation is classified in the course text as extemporaneous speaking (“Principles of Human Communication”438) and is much more effective than the memorization delivery technique also described in the course text (440) because it allows the speaker to have the freedom to ad lib if necessary without feeling the need to start over. It allows the speaker to give a much more personable versus robotic portrayal of the intended message and Obama portrays this as he glances down subtly several times during his speech to keep his place but neither relies too heavily on reading his notes nor trying to recite his speech word for word which is the perfect balance.

There also appears to be elements of cognitive dissonance theory in the speech. According to the course text, cognitive dissonance is a state that occurs when the audience experiences two contradictory ideas, actions or values where rectifying said contradiction would ultimately lead to a change in one of these elements for the listener (553).  Obama effectively uses this by portraying the courage, strength, determination, and impact of all the leaders and marchers involved in that fateful day in Selma and forcing people to compare this to the audience’s idealized view of themselves. As many in the audience who either were intentionally listening to the speech in person, watching it on television and likely desired to be thought of positively by the President of the United States, the picture painted by Obama of what it means to be an American likely contrasted with the way many of them were currently living their lives in turn spurring them to change their behaviors of voting habits and general involvement.

In terms of structuring, Obama’s speech seems to follow Monroe’s motivated sequence which is a pattern of structuring persuasive speeches outlined in the text (566). This type of organization pattern is split into an attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action. To grab audience attention, he begins the speech using descriptive imagery of the events leading up to “Bloody Sunday” after which he notes that America still has work to do on the issues of race relations, police brutality, and poverty. The satisfaction, or solution, he provides is for citizens to truly appreciate their right to vote, a privilege that wasn’t always available to all and had to be fought for, and for the youth to once again be the instruments to change the course of history. To help visualize what could be accomplished at one point stating “with effort, we can protect the foundation stone of our democracy” (“Barack Obama”). The action step is called upon in his closing remarks where he states, “we honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar” (“Barack Obama”).

The rhetorical proofs of ethos, pathos, and logos are all present in the speech. Ethos refers to the credibility or trustworthiness of the author of a message and the reliability of his message, pathos refers to the intended emotional response the author of message intends to draw from listeners, and logos refers to the actual content of the message and deals more with the organization and structuring of the message and the attempts of rationalization and logic that the author of a message makes (Sproat et al.). The ethos of the speech relies on the President’s authority as Commander in Chief. The pathos he evokes is solemn remembrance and inspiration as well as a sense of duty and responsibility. The logos or content is supplemented by evidence and quotations from notable sources including Whitman, Emerson, and the US Constitution. The most influential of all of these is likely pathos.

In conclusion, Obama’s Selma speech is a persuasive work and makes use of many tools learned in the course text as markers of effective persuasive techniques. By tying relevance to a historical event to present day issues and problems, Obama is able to incite an emotional reaction that includes feelings of civic duty and responsibility to increase involvement in the political process and the course of history.

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