Letter From Birmingham By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King wrote the “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” after an unfair proposal made by white clergymen. Their claims were that no negro should be allowed to establish or lead any protests. King replied directly to the clergymen, but used religious ties to establish himself as legitimate authority in the eyes of his audience, to show the inconveniences of black people in America, to justify his cause, and to argue the necessity of the immediate action. In the passage King used both ethos and pathos.

In Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” he uses many examples of rhetorical devices in order for him to be able to reach out to the clergymen in the way he wishes to. He wants to get his point, that there should be a strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism, across without upsetting his readers. King uses many examples of ethos, pathos, and parallelism in order for him to convince his readers that nonviolence in the answer.

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.

'Letter from Birmingham Jail' is, truth be told, a letter composed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from an isolation cell in Birmingham, Alabama. A few segments of the letter were composed and step by step pirated out by King's legal counselor on pieces of paper including, by a few reports, harsh jailhouse bathroom tissue. Vicious supremacist dread against African Americans was so awful in Birmingham in the late spring of 1963 that the city was being alluded to by a few local people as Bombingham.

After being criticized about his presence in Birmingham by white clergy in a letter published in the Birmingham newspaper, Martin Luther King set out to not only establish why he was in Birmingham, but also to establish moral, legal, and ethical cause to his platform and the resultant peaceful protests he had been promoting, all of which lead to his arrest and the reason he was in jail. Martin Luther King established early on in the letter his credibility as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and also that he was in Birmingham due to an invitation as a result of his organizational ties. Mr. King also went on to elaborate about his personal reason for being there due to a great injustice to the black people that prevailed in Birmingham. Mr. King used the artistic proofs of ethos, logos and pathos to establish his credibility and persuade or convince his audience in the relevance of his platform.

Meanwhile, Dr. King also appeals to the logical side of the men within the letter, to lead them to the bigger picture of the injustice faced by African-Americans during this era. Dr. King uses facts and United States laws to prove that his actions were not untimely but in contrast these actions were overdue and that in fact he was not an outsider, but rather an invited guest.“So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here, I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” (King) He goes on by saying “Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a

Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the Civil Rights Movement, was arrested and placed in Birmingham jail after leading a non-violent march to protest racism in the streets of Alabama- a highly segregated state at the time. There he received a newspaper containing “A Call for Unity,” which was written by eight white Alabama clergymen criticizing King and his movement’s methods; this prompted King to write a letter in response to the critics. Martin Luther King Jr. employs ethos, pathos, and logos to persuade and demonstrate to the critics and other readers the many injustices of segregation.

     Martin Luther King Jr. writes the Clergymen that have written him a letter disputing his actions in Birmingham. King is disturbed and offended by the Clergymen disagreeing with his purpose in Birmingham. King say he normally does not respond to criticism because it would waste to much precious time, but since these were men of good will he wanted to give his answers to their statements. In King's letter he appeals to many emotions as pathos, ethos, and logos to appeal to his audience.

Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that everything the blacks were going through affected the whites. When he was in Birmingham jail, it was because he was the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the affiliates urged him to engage in a nonviolent act. He claims to have went down there because of the injustice in the area. King states in his letter that, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”White individuals can no longer say what is happening to the blacks isn't affecting them, because it is. Their whole life revolves around the African Americans, even if they don't believe it. For example, there are segregated churches, water fountains, schools, public transportation, beaches, name it and it is most likely segregated. For example, imagine that someone white goes to church every Sunday, and one day a black woman is trying to go to church, and they won't allow her to go into the building. Even spiritual being who swear by the bible are neglecting what the bible is about, and that is that everyone is equal and beautiful in God’s eyes. The poor black women, though, she can not even get

Martin Luther King Jr. was the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and his reasoning for being in Birmingham, Alabama was because their organization was holding a Human Rights Movement in Birmingham. In the text Martin Luther King Jr. says “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.” The meaning of this quote is that Apostle Paul left his village in order to achieve a goal as martin Luther King Jr., traveling to Alabama in order to gain justice for the colored folks of Birmingham. In the following quote, Martin Luther King Jr. is also referencing a biblical allusion, Apostle Paul, he was a Prophet according to the

The Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. is written to the injustices of the African Americans by the white man supremacy, and to address the direct actions African Americans were making to change the people’s perspective. The books that have been read in this class reflect the same injustices that Martin Luther King Jr is addressing in his letter. The main point of this letter is to address the direct action being taken by the African Americans and how they sacrificing everything for their rights when only little progress is their outcome. The white supremacy is overruling and the direct action needed to be taken is negotiating with non-violent acts to create a tension between the communities to confront the issues. A non-violent act, such as sit-ins, freedom rides, and marches will create the tension to the white community.

To explain a situation or argument successfully, one must understand and be able to use rhetoric and its devices. One prime example of the use of rhetorical appeals is in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. In this letter, King simply responds to certain criticisms and explains his presence in Birmingham. He does this effectively by building a historical ethos, appealing to heart-wrenching pathos, and using undeniable logos; which will all be discussed in this essay.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s audience for the letters from prison were his critics even though it touched many and went into history. He wanted to silence or change the thoughts of his naysayers. Dr. King explained his presence in Birmingham was because of his affiliate churches and mentioned that his presence was from an invite. The mere fact that he had people with him was because they always traveled as a group. Reading the letter and use of words to address concern without offending people who did not believe in his cause. The letter also gave hope to the community he was fighting for.

Often times in letters or passages, authors analyze strengths and weaknesses often know as rhetorical analysis. In Martin Luther King Junior’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, he uses terms of artistic appeal by utilizing ethos, pathos, and logos to demonstrate his claim. Martin Luther King Jr. utilizes personal experiences and events to therefore convince the clergyman to stop the segregation occurring and to increase the public use of nonviolent campaigning.

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.