All Americans partake in the American identity, one that represents freedom, equality and all its benefits. Sojourner Truth, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King Junior all indulged in the American identity to which they held to the highest regard, standing for what they believed was morally right. Although they shared this common identity, their various ways of implementing it were quite dissimilar. In 1776, the second year of the revolutionary war, (1775-1783) Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia congressman, who dared to speak out against the rule of the tyrant, King George III, wrote “The Declaration of Independence” which would come to be one of the greatest pieces of American Literature. In this epistle to the royal crown, he used stylistic devices such as organization and unique diction; He also uses rhetorical devices such as anaphora to convey his American identity. An identity that resented injustice, and stood for fair treatment of the people by the government. In 1851 Sojourner Truth, who was born a slave in 1797, gave her short yet powerful speech, “Ain't I a Woman”. This speech was administered at a Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio. The theme of the meeting being women empowerment, her speech complimented the occasion considerably well and passed on her message of equality amongst all with no hindrance through her use of slang and idiomatic expression. On April 16th, 1963, a civil rights activist from Atlanta Georgia, named Martin Luther King Junior, after being imprisoned, wrote a letter to the clergymen of Alabama, criticizing them for condemning his peaceful attempts towards racial equality and justice for the African American community and other minority races. His letter, titled “Letter from Birmingham Jail” showed examples of syntax, periodic and inverted sentences as well as parallelism. With Great Britain fighting wars on every side of the world, it was imperative that these expenses be funded. The solution was to outrageously tax the colonists
