Letter From Birmingham Jail Rhetorical Analysis

The majority of this letter is logos. It was important for Dr. King’s intended audience to acknowledge the logic behind the actions taken that landed him in the situation he was in while writing this letter. This adds to the overall argument by giving the readers knowledge of the situation from a different point of view. In order for Dr. King to properly convey his points he had to first give a logical explanation for his actions. He gives critiques of the church, the people-good and bad-and critiques of the clergymen

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

King discusses the morals and types of laws, those “just and unjust”. By explaining laws and using reason to portray situations when laws can and should be broken, King guides the clergymen through his rationalization. To strengthen the sympathetic pathos in his letter, King discusses historical people and events and because something is legal, it doesn't make it moral, like segregation. He emphasizes that although everything Hitler did, such as murdering millions of Jews and cruel scientific experiments, was legal, it was not morally right. "It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal." King is comparing American segregation to Hitler's anti-Semitic Germany. King quotes St. Augustine, “an unjust law is no law at all.” Because King comes off as being moral and fair, ethos is established. He is seen as an integral leader. Through this, King is able to argue why he links segregation to being an unjust law.

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.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is addressed to several clergymen who had written an open letter criticizing the actions of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during their protests in Birmingham. Dr. King tells the clergymen that he was upset about their criticisms, and that he wishes to address their concerns.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Junior uses logos and allusion to persuade the reader on the values of civil disobedience. A prime example of logos in this text is, “An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote(MLK, 13).” This example of logos shows the reasoning for civil disobedience and why people act upon it. For a minority to be targeted by a law that they had no part in is intolerable. The primary value for civil disobedience is equality. For a country to have a law against a minority is against the beliefs and values of civil disobedience. “There are just and there are unjust laws… An unjust law is

Late civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, in his detrimental letter to the eight religious leaders, “The Birmingham Jail” , conveys and expresses his feelings of religious and civil injustice of segregation against not just African Americans but also the general public. King primarily aimed his letter at the eight religious leaders of the Southern Church but also extended it to encompass the president down to those of ordinary citizens. To persuade his readers King prominently exercising the three basic appeals of ethos, logos and pathos, by not only appealing to his own insight but invoking feelings of morality, sympathy , and justice in the readers. Finally we see him appeal to logic, but supporting his assertions with evidence

In paragraph 2, King points out the facts as well as his business in Birmingham. Logos required logic, facts, anything that shows flow of logic. In this text, King was informing us, as well as the clergymen that he in fact did have business in Birmingham. “Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” … Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.” (Par. 3) A subsection of logos is appeal to authority and by referencing to the Apostle Paul, King uses the same Biblical mentality of the clergymen to get his own point across, as well as justify his reasons for being in Alabama. Just like the Apostle Paul spread the word of Jesus, King is spreading the word of freedom. Briefly, King touched upon nonviolent direct-action in the previous paragraph as in his reasons for being there, however he goes more in depth into these direct-action ‘steps’. “In any nonviolent campaign there are four steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.” (Par. 6) A major element of logos is enumeration. King uses enumeration to lay out a foundation for his counter argument by addressing the essential steps needed to have a successful nonviolent campaign.

King Jr while sitting in jail with thoughts of a better solution running through his mind created a letter that was able to win over his reader using the rhetoric strategy tools. The first corner of the Rhetorical Triangle that King uses throughout the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is the appeal to Ethos. Ethos is a humans sense of right vs. wrong, it’s our morals and values. Ethos is the thought of the God in the sky vs. the god of the land. When King writes “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”….. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (King 295). This quote is important because it is the purpose of the entirety of the letter. We are all affected by these laws and we all must follow these set laws. No individual should get a pass due to the color of their skin or how wealthy they are. Another example of Ethos that King uses is “One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” (King 299). We are all responsible for our actions and reactions. If something or someone wrongs us, it’s in our human nature to defend ourselves and to fight back whether it is words or physical violence. Because King didn’t use violence but the power of words he was able to convince his readers of his stance of positive

Used as an appeal to emotion, logic and a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader by reason, Martin Luther King clearly used ETHOS throughout his article in a series of multiple ways. With this in mind, after many readings of King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, I was able to identify countless examples of ETHOS. Quoted, “ I hope will be considered, patient and reasonable terms” (para1), King was wanting to express his feelings towards others, as well as, the use of appropriate language by using words such as patient and reasonable. By using these terms, these two words shows a professionalism that

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.

Rhetorical Analysis on “Letter from Birmingham Jail” While confined in a Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King Junior writes a letter to his fellow clergymen to defend himself against their criticism of his method to fighting segregation. He also intends to persuade the clergymen to fight back against the segregation. Martin Luther King Junior utilizes many rhetorical strategies and devices in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and successfully makes a strong message to his clergymen to understand his position and to persuade them to join his idea of a nonviolent fight against racism and segregation.

King combines the use of ethos and pathos as he compares himself and the rights of men to religious backgrounds. His first comparison is with the Apostle Paul, where Paul had “carried the gospel of Jesus Christ,” as to Kings carrying of “the gospel of freedom.” King addresses this similarity to show why he felt committed to go to Birmingham, because like Paul, he needed to respond as an aid to his people. Towards the end of Kings letter; he exemplifies courageousness in the Negro demonstrations by relating them to the actions of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they refused to follow what they believed to be unjust laws. Saying that if they are supposed heroes by going against unjust laws, why shouldn't the people see Negro demonstrators the same way? They are also God's children and by those disobedience’s, they were really showing the grace of God. These connections to religion supports their fighting against unjust laws as a divine cause.

Expressing disappointment towards the church leaders, he states that they should do more, to help the minority stand on their two feet, and not feel discriminated against. This is because following the teachings of God, every human being is equal. Therefore, the church must help structure society closest to how The Bible shows. King fought for this same equality. However, being verbally reprimanded and going to jail for voicing his rights, he shows what happens when you go against the norm of society. The church is there to break those norms, and construct new ideals in accordance with the word of God.

As throughout this letter Martin Luther King speaks about the church and how it is important in his life as it made him the person he was. King speaks about the church's changing how in the old days “...deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed in.” Moreover, he thinks that there was this strength to fight and that they was light to make laws right and segregation gone. So, as of now or later years he saw this disconnect in the church’s, “...consoled by the church’s silent, and often even vocal, sanction of things as they are.” In addition, King says that there is more talk on breaking the law and not about the same issue they all had in the beginning which was fighting for injustices, for rights of black people. King says that things