"But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when yo
u have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people ... —then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait." Which rhetorical strategy does King adopt in these lines?
When one is seen to continuously repeat the same words at the beginning of a clause, phrase or sentences following each other successively, then the Anaphora Technique has been used. It has a way of creating a poetic effect.
King adopted a retorical strategy commonly called <em><u>an appeal to emotion</u></em>. This is because, he was trying to appeal to the emotions of other blacks living in America of the need to act now to end the segregation rather than accepting it and feeling defeated.
This retorics is captured in this quote below:
"<em> ...... when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children......</em>"
