Baldwin’s first point is that Black people are attacked by a Western system of reality, which as he says, spells out to them that they are worthless human beings. He goes on to say that his people helped build the country by making railroads and picking cotton and that they get nothing in return. His next point is that the country was really slow in changing the system that negatively affects them. This is addressed when he implicitly mentions the terror of lynching when he says: “If it were white people being murdered, the Government would find some way of doing something about it”, implying that there’s no action against this terror. He even talks about the 15th amendment not being honored and how this struggle was going for 400 years. Lastly, he approaches the middle ground, by stating that Black people are human too and that we all need to realize that we need each other. Baldwin even says that White people come to the “heavenly” realization that they’re not Black, which in this, he may be saying, that it’s why he thinks Black people weren’t cared for. 

Baldwin uses ethos when saying that he has picked cotton and built railroads, getting nothing in return, as if to say that the American dream is at his expense. There is the use of pathos at one instance when he talks about the aforementioned realization for White people, which would make the crowd think that it is wrong while calling White people “poor” to say that they are victimized too. Lastly, he uses logos when he addresses the crowd, saying that everyone in the room is civilized to address his point on Black people being human too.

Buckley responds to a lot of what Baldwin said and the first point he made is that he is viewed as more than just a negro in the day of the debate, because the crowd was willing to listen to him. The next point he made is that changing the system is radical and he even compares it to burning the constitution or the bible. Lastly, he states that there are already opportunities for Black people in America, and says that Baldwin just needs to use them. He uses a statistic about the growth of doctors in an attempt to support it.

An aforementioned example of ethos is when Buckley cites that the number of Black doctors increased from 3,500 in 1900 to 3,900 in 1960 and even refers to the book he found this statistic from, so that the crowd knows that he isn’t making something up. The first point in itself is logos, which he uses to say that there has been advancement for the Negro and possibly even implies that Baldwin is unaware. Another example of the devices is when he brings up Catholic and Jewish suffrage in England, which were given without overthrowing the system, as if to say that there doesn’t need to be an overthrow of the system in the US.