A moment in the United States and which dispute the commonly held belief that rhetorical practices in Democratic forms of government tend to florish together, was during the Civil Rights Movement. This begin with the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs Board of Education. This outlawed segregated education. This campaign for desegregation became part of larger movement that reshaped America not only in terms of race, but also politically, social, and economically, just as the rise of rhetoric in Athens with the sophist. The surface of this time we’re African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, Charles H. Houston, Rosa Parks, and John Lewis.

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In June 2016 Jessie Williams, Grey’s Anatomy actor, was honored and awarded the Humanitarian Award at the Black Entertainment Television Awards (BET). The Humanitarian Award, sponsored by State Farm, has been given annually for the past 14 years. In order to receive this award a person must posses and obtain a high level of ethos within the community. A person who is considered to be intelligent, virtuous, and an overall good character is one who is considered for this award. “The speaker must understand what the community believes makes a person believable” (Herrick 81). Although Williams uses all three rhetorical appeals in his speech, the use of pathos dominates tone when communicating his message with the audience.

Throughout the speech Williams attempts to persuade the audience by making them feel emotions of curiosity, grief, and admiration, which we call pathos. Herrick describes pathos as “the study of a psychology of emotion, governed by a moral concern for discovering and act on the truth” (Herrick 79). In his introduction, Williams lays out his thesis, that his speech is for those “that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do”. This is framework for the remainder of his speech to come.