North Carolina A & T's Fall Convocation Speech Analysis

In the article Black Males and Adult Education: A Call to Action written by Brendaly Drayton, Dionne Rosser-Mims, Joni Schwartz, and Talmadge C. Guy want to expose the challenges that black males face in education. They make it clear their purpose is to incite a great change in the way black males are treated in the education system, give black men a voice, and endorse an analytical evaluation of institutional procedures and practices. More importantly the article states that the authors’ point is not to encourage the stereotypes and behaviors attributed to black men that society has put upon them, rather their point is to show the world that their destructive view on black males is stopping them from reaching their full potential.

In America, we are told that it is the land where everything and anything is possible. For many years, it wasn’t like that for African American. With many hard work, strength, and courage African American manage to earn the right to an education. To the African American community education became more of a need than a want. We’ve learn that education is such a powerful asset that with it you are unstoppable. You can do so much if you put your time and energy to it. Having an education to African American is the one hope for a brighter and better

Students attend school starting at pre-school then kindergarten, kindergarten to first grade and leading up to middle school then high school, the classes and teachers are supposed to prepare them for the next level. With the correct preparation and tools, after graduating high school, many students have their mind set on attending college as the next level. However many African-American male students who do have the ability to graduate high school, are not prepared for their next level which is college. Due to the quality of these schools “the school districts in urban neighborhoods have fewer academic offerings, less qualified teachers, out of date materials and lower quality curriculum” (WOOD, J. (2011), results in the poor education of the minority students attending them. Also due to the different academic and environment backgrounds that white and black students come from, many teachers are unaware of how to teach black students and how to gain their attention in the classroom. Other than

Good evening Yucaipa high school graduates, friends, family, staff, school board members, and administration. I'm honored to be the class speaker of the Yucaipa high school graduating class of 2017! Tonight I will be sharing different events from my life that have impacted me the most and that inspire me, as I hope they will inspire you. Although before I start I want to give a huge shout out to my best friend/sister Haley Hillrich because without her I don’t think I would be up here tonight. Now lets get started so we can officially graduate.

Today's education is often viewed as failing in its goal of educating students, especially those students characterized as minorities, including African American, Hispanic, and Appalachian students (Quiroz, 1999). Among the minority groups mentioned, African American males are affected most adversely. Research has shown that when Black male students are compared to other students by gender and race they consistently rank lowest in academic achievement (Ogbu, 2003), have the worst attendance record (Voelkle, 1999), are suspended and expelled the most often (Raffaele Mendez, 2003; Staples, 1982), are most likely to drop out of school, and most often fail to graduate from high school or to earn a GED (Pinkney, 2000; Roderick, 2003).

The rhetorical essay has been a tradition in public speaking since Ancient Greece. Meant to persuade an audience to believe an idea or to embrace a way of thinking, public speakers have utilized this technique for centuries to inspire change in those who listen to it. Carrie Chapman Catt's commencement speech to the 1936 graduating class at Sweet Briar College is a speech that exemplifies the key devices and methods of persuasion in rhetoric, as well as inspiring her audience, a girls-only institution of higher learning, to work hard not only to improve their own lives, but to create a world greater than their own for generations to come. Carrie Chapman Catt delivered a highly effective commencement speech using the rhetorical devices logos,

This article is entitled, “The Problem Behind the Problem: Creating Economic Well Being for Young Men of Color,” and was published in the International Journal of Business and Public Administration. It argues that there is a need for groundwork to be established to create and maintain future economic well being for African American men. In creating this groundwork, the author, Dr. Melvinia Turner-King, believes that this foundation starts with the social responsibility of scholars, political leaders and administrators, and so on. King puts her passion for her position in this matter into play with a pilot leadership program she proposed for African American male college students, which asserts ethically and socially responsible solutions designed to fit the current cultural and economic realities of our global environment. The results also reveal the importance of public administrators and educational institutions serving in collaborative leadership enterprises. Essentially, King argues that the results from her study illustrate that the “problem behind the problem” is that successful predecessors are not reaching back and helping undereducated black males to ensure future economic stability.

Criticising others takes a great deal of courage, especially when this criticism could reflect upon one’s own work. However, in the introduction of her speech to the Women’s National Press Club, Clare Booth Luce utilizes changes in tone, humor, while appealing to ethos, and pathos to prepare her audience for the impending criticism.

Gregory, Perry and Rankin also explains that In 1907, African Americans infrequently had different choices for advanced education aside from a general (HBCU) .Furthermore, Gregory, Perry and Rankin states that In 2008, HBCUs are still transcendently African American and flourishing in light of the fact that these organizations are effectively teaching and graduating African-American understudies more so than ever before. According to Gregory, Perry, and Rankin Notwithstanding and now and again ignored, HBCUs are an imperative choice for secondary school African-American understudies look into attending more so today than any other secondary institution. Lastly, Gregory, Perry and Rankin explain how (HBCUs) secondary schools offer advantages minority understudies may some way or another not get if they were to attend a non HBCU; which is why minorities and African American understudies choose to attend HBCUs solely over the option of advantages offered at these HBCUs.

These claims have been well documented. However, the connection to the graduation gap may be clearer with an answer of how other factors such as financial and other family problems brought about by poverty affect them. The rest of the book provides possible solutions to questions of invisibility such as respecting and valuing black students. Another solution is removing remedial programs for challenging curricula and supports that are appropriate.

Rob Nelson brought this article with an extrinsic ethos in it based on the character of the author. Rob Nelson is a well known African-American editor in Chief of Chapel Hill’s Daily Tar Heel newspaper. Its estimated print readership of 38,000 makes it the largest community newspaper in Orange County (DTH Media, 2011). This is a well-known magazine for the audience; therefore, all the information and article from Daily Tar Heel must be reliable to the audience. Since he was born and raised in an African- American community, Nelson usually reflects on issues about race and practicing racism in his writing. Later on, the article was re-published in the academic journal, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a journal that has a high academically reliable and strong authority. The readers knew about Nelson and his authority before they read his article.

Alexander H. Stephen, in the ‘Cornerstone Speech’, firmly stated that, the Confederacy was basically on racial inequality and slavery. He clearly outlined the existing differences between the new nation and the American United States. Stephen made it clear that, the Confederacy of the cornerstone was not primarily of chattel slavery, but the black people subordination benefited the white people. Thus, he tied slavery to race. Confederacy was the origin of the era of apartheid in South Africa. Stephen made declarations that the new government was founded on the great truth , that the negro was not equal on the side of the white people and that, slavery which was to be a subordination to the white race which was superior, was a normal and a natural condition. Stephen criticized the claims of the northern that, African enslavement was a law violation nature and that it was a wrong principle, morally, politically and socially. He clearly put across that his new government had an idea which was exactly different from the northern claims. He argued that, it was a kind of insanity to believe that the Negro will be equal between the white and black people and also that, enslaving the blacks was wrong. He made predictions that, the Confederate constitution has settled all the questions relating to the African slavery which existed among the white people. Stephen’s arguments led to the outbreak of the civil war in 1865 (The Teaching AmericanHistory.org, 2017).

A convocation is a special gathering of a group of individuals, formally assembled for a special purpose. On April 12, 2017, North Carolina A&T State held their Student Honor’s Convocation. This assembly recognized the hardworking students at A&T while having a senior computer science student deliver a key message to her peers.

In studying the success factors of high achieving Black males in high school, Allen (2015) found that parents were proactive in teaching their sons to have racial pride and resilience while understanding the dynamics and barriers of racism. One father stated, “For some reason, because of the color of our skin, we’re looked down upon as being nothing and if we don’t do something supernatural and achieve way beyond everybody else then you’re never going to get out of that box” (Allen, 2015, p. 221). Therefore, it became essential for the fathers to teach their children to “achieve way beyond everybody else” (Allen, 2015, p. 221) in order to achieve racial justice. The idea of racial justice as a motivator is significant in giving the Black male students agency to be Black academically talented men.

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that