Bryan Stevenson, speaker of this energizing speech, is a human right lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. In the speech his key message is the revelation of some harsh truths about the current justice system in America and the appeal for the audience to face and talk about them. Since he is a lawyer as well as an excellent orator, his logical and skillful organization, manipulative using of language, along with his sincere and extemporaneous delivery makes his message more impressive and persuasive. .
Organization & Persuasion .
Like every speech, this one has an introduction, body and conclusion. Bryan begins the speech by implying his occupation as a public-interest lawyer and telling a story. He says, "I spend most of my time in jails, in prisons, on death row. I spent" In this way, he raises the audience's interest and establishes his credibility for the later discussion on the topic. And then through the story of his grandmother's influence on him, he brings up an important concept in this speech-identity, demonstrating that identity has power in it. Bryan organizes his body part in problem-cause-solution order. The objective of this speech is to argue that people should realize problems in the justice system, and embrace the challenge to make a change. Therefore this speech is to gain immediate action, and it is the speech on questions of policy. He combines logos with pathos to make his speech more persuasive.
In this part, one significant technique the speaker uses to increase his persuasion is that he uses a lot of specific evidences as his supporting materials, these including rounded-off statistics with astounding comparison, like ones in the sentence "In 1972, there were 300,000 people in jails and prisons. Today, there are 2.3 million.", and explained statistics, like the one in the sentence "A kind of astonishing error rate -- one out of nine people innocent.
