Ride to Freedom

From the 1870's to the 1970's, racial segregation was a terrible unjust way of life for African Americans. Until one woman, Rosa Parks, decided to take a stand against segregation. She was a 42 year old African American woman who worked as a seamstress. On December 1, 1955 Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery City, Alabama going home after a long day at work. She sat near the middle of the bus, just behind the ten seats reserved for whites only. The bus soon filled and when a white man entered the bus, the driver following the standard practice of segregation, insisted that all four African Americans, sitting just behind the white section, give up their seats so the man could sit. But Parks, who was an active member of the NAACP, quietly refused to give up her seat. 

The method I used for this rhetorical analysis was Burke’s pentad. Burke introduced his pentad as a way to uncover human conduct and motives. The pentad contains five elements or terms: act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose. Parks’ act or rule-breaking behavior was her refusing to give up her seat to the white man. The agent or the character engaged in the rule-breaking behavior was Rosa Parks. Bus number 2875 in Montgomery City, Alabama was the scene or the location and situation where the act took place. The purpose of this story is Parks standing up against racial segregation and for her rights. 

After identifying these elements I determined the motive by using a ratio. Agency/purpose was the ratio I decided for this analysis. The agency/purpose says that Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus (agency) because she was standing up for herself and other African Americans against segregation (purpose). Parks was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was one of the many who believed African Americans deserved the same rights as white people had. During that time what Parks did was against the law. She should have quietly gotten up and given the white man her seat. But she acted differently because she was fed-up with being treated differently. She wanted a change and she proved it by her actions. If you would like to watch the full movie The Rosa Parks Story click here.