How Is Rhetorical Appeals Used In Letter From Birmingham Jail

One of the rhetorical strategies is comparison, and comparison comes in the letter of “"Letter from a Birmingham Jail” when Dr.King compared between the old church and the modern church, and he showed his disappointment when he said “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society… So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo.”

A legacy of a lifetime, and the working goal of changing America’s long established view of African-Americans as illiterate slaves. These accomplishments describe civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. When arrested in Birmingham for protesting, he made sure to come across as non-violent. Peace was his goal and he wasn’t going to stray. To establish this idea into his fellow clergymen he wrote an open letter defending the actions of the civil rights movement as a whole. Claiming that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” (insert citation here). These words contain emotion of the failed promise of the constitution; pathos. The first-hand account of a man who has been jailed due to the injustice justice

In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail) written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the three artistic appeals of Aristotle are plainly apparent, especially logos. Dr. King repeatedly appeals to logos (Ruszkiewicz) throughout the entire piece; particularly when he says he was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist then gradually gained a matter of satisfaction from the label. He is very impassioned in his language and tone in this part of the letter, yet still makes a strong argument for logic. Despite the overwhelming emotional and personal investment involved Dr. King still allows logic to prevail thus lending him a huge amount of credibility. As a member of the community being persecuted in

Martin Luther King Jr. once stated, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” (“Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes”). He stood up to his word by always standing up for the rights of fellow African Americans. On April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested for violating the Alabama law against mass public demonstrations. Following his arrest, eight clergy members of a local church criticized his protest and called it “unwise and untimely.” In response to many of their accusations, King wrote a letter from his jail cell in Birmingham (“Letter From Birmingham Jail (1963)”). One accusation that the clergymen made was that King’s nonviolent protest was “extreme”. King employed many rhetorical devices to respond to this claim, but the most persuasive devices he used were logos, allusions and parallelism.

In his letter from Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King Jr., a civil right activist a Baptist Minister and the creator of “In Letter from Birmingham jail.” King uses concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos to convey his points. Racial tension was high during Martin Luther King’s time, and he was the voice of the black community. He articulated his words carefully and had use methods of civil disobedience to convey his point. One of the first appeals he makes in his letter is from a logos perspective. He states, “if his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways they will come out in ominous expressions of violence” (King 425). King’s example shows that peaceful protest should be heard just as well as a violent protest. The

The rhetorical device used most effective in the Letter Of Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King Jr. is allusion, or an indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. For example, in the letter it says in 1954, the Supreme Court outlawed the segregation in the public schools. This explains Another example is in paragraph 3, it states that, “...just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world…”

Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was able to captivate many people during a time where African Americans were considered inferior. He stood up for himself and others and vowed to make a change in his community and around the country. The words he were extremely powerful and are still remembered today. Some of his words aroused people and caused them to want to make a change (pathos), and others appealed to reason and used evidence (logos). Dr. King used pathos more frequently in his I Have a Dream speech and used logos more prominently in the Letter from Birmingham Jail letter.

Letter from Birmingham Jail Rhetorical Analysis In the Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr demonstrates his fury with the delay of the civil rights promised in U.S. Constitution. In a specific passage in the letter, Dr. King addresses that his actions are timely, and that change must be put in order. Dr. King makes the reader feel mournful, uses strategic repetition, and syntax through the use of a periodic sentence in the Letter from Birmingham Jail to convey that integration cannot be postponed any longer. Dr. King uses strategic repetition to illustrate the long lived feeling of “waiting” for a change.

Martin Luther King Jr., a well-known civil rights activist, was arrested on a Friday for protesting about delayed rights he felt African Americans deserved without a permit. Even though the first amendment grants all Americans the right to assemble and protest peacefully he was still sent to jail along with other African Americans who he protested with. King wrote this letter while he was in jail responding to eight white religious leaders of the South in concern of the treatment African Americans have endured over the past decades. Whites have made African Americans feel inferior to them for years and King was always the person to bring attention to all their wrongdoings. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail to express his strategies of using nonviolent tactics to break unjust laws that were against racism. As King wrote the letter he expressed his strategies by using ethical, logical, and emotional appeals to the readers in different readers and draw them in more.

In order to successfully write rhetorically, an author must persuade an audience as if to win a debate. To do this, the author must create a trustworthy bond with the audience, support his claim through reason, and create emotion in the audience that compels them to leap out of their seats and take action. Martin Luther King Jr. attempted to do this when he wrote an open letter while in his jail cell after a peaceful debate against segregation. His lettered response was guided at a statement by eight white Alabama clergymen saying that segregation should be fought in court and not on the streets. King uses a combination of three rhetorical appeals to accomplish his rhetor; ethical, logical and emotional. The three appeals used together

In the letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 16, 1963, Dr. King is answering criticism from white clergy men. King stumbled upon a statement in a newspaper while in jail and felt the need to write on it. He did it to explain why he was in jail. After all Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a nonviolent protestor. Kings says “I am in Birmingham because in justice is here.” Dr. King wants to see a change. This paper will examine King’s uses of rhetorical devices to appeal to his audience. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s letter “Letter from Birmingham Jail” reveals all three rhetorical appeals. It appeals to ethos, logos and pathos.

In 1963 Civil rights leaders, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his letter to the men of the clergy, entitled “ Letters from Birmingham Jail” while stuck in the confines of Birmingham jail. King was thrown into prison on accounts of violence after a peaceful protest. As many of his fellow clergyman reported negative things in regards to king and his cause, he refuted with writing an open letter, in which he states his beliefs on equality for all as well as stating why he needed to stay in Birmingham to stop all the injustice. Throughout the essay, he uses many examples of rhetorical devices (i.e. Rhetorical question, redefinition, etc.) to illustrate that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Writing from the heart, expressing feelings, having a strong emotional impact on ones audience, using an appeal to emotion and logic, using facts and presenting arguments in a professional way, to the enlightenment of one's viewers; Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail; consists of three Rhetorical Strategies throughout his letter that is known and taught around the world as ETHOS, PATHOS and LOGOS. An appeal to ethics, a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader (ethos), an appeal to emotion, and a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response (Pathos), and finally, an appeal to logic, and is a way of persuading an audience by reason (Logos); these three Rhetorical Strategies are used countless times throughout Martin Luther King’s Letter for Birmingham Jail.

Martin Luther King Jr., a peaceful advocate for civil rights, was jailed for his non-violent protest against segregation. During his stay at the Birmingham Jail, a group of religious leaders publically attacked him with criticisms for his peaceful protest. As a counter attack, King wrote 'The Letter From Birmingham Jail'. This counter was successful for King was able to analyze and address his audience, refer to historical and religious figures and utilize anaphoras, making this letter, one of the most impressive argumentative essays.

Dr. King was arrested in 1963 in the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans. “The Letter from Birmingham Jail”, written a few days after King’s arrest, defended Dr. King’s argument about the civil rights movement. He uses the pathos, ethos, and logos modes of persuasion and uses several rhetorical strategies such as metaphors, citing authority, parallelism, Rogerian strategy, and anaphora to defend his argument against racism and segregation.