Martin Luther King Search for Meaning

After earning a divinity degree from Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary, King attended graduate school at Boston University, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1955. The title of his dissertation was “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”

Relating to several biblical allusions like Apostle Paul and Jesus Christ, he sensuously establishes credible authenticity and significance to his motives of civil disobedience against unjust laws; they assist in accentuating the justice within his “unjustified” actions. King also provokes compelling emotional tides of sympathy and compassion to overcome his readers when he provides sorrow-filled descriptions of the torments Blacks have to go through everyday. Furthermore, his usage of logic in identifying equality as a natural right of all men firmly defends his reasons on sanctioning desegregation. Leaving no loopholes behind his reasoning or ambiguity in his purpose, King competently succeeds in proficiently perpetuating his views on injustice and civil disobedience.

By making such a comparison, King is establishing credibility and essentially saying to the clergymen, “listen up”.

King then sums up this passage by turning his voice back to the clergymen he's addressing and says, "Then you will understand why we find it difficult to

He talked about racism, a non-violent approach, freedom and what should be demanded by the government. King showed these topics go hand in hand and you can't talk about one without bringing up another. Like explaining racism and all the things happening to his brothers and sisters it was almost inevitable that he mentioned how him and followers were able to used a peaceful protest to make a statement against violence, instead of reacting out of emotions with violence. King then talked about freedom should be granted, no matter the race. King thought that nobody should stand for being the last to receive what’s technically was theirs when it came to freedom, he believed we shouldn’t wait for the government, but demand freedom from the government.“Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds”(King page 1). He felt that living in the USA, freedom is

King makes this identification with Paul because he is also carrying a message beyond his hometown; however, instead of gospel, King is carrying a message of freedom. This effectively connects with the clergymen’s religious beliefs, creating a sense of affinity between the men.

‘Nothing mattered more to king than being an outstanding preacher. Martin Luther King had an exceptional personal some state. He was a very proud and an outspoken man. He had been ‘conditioned’ from the mere age of nine and ordained in a black church for later life purposes (1). At a young age racism surrounded him and was affected first hand. He was abused by a white mill owner purely on the colour of his skin. He also witnessed other black people suffering from violence when he saw a white mob attack and barbarically murder a black man. King was a very opinionated person and became a lead figure head publicly known on a national scale. This came to be

In the beginning of his letter, King explained, through the use of ethos, the challenges he dealt with and how he overcame those challenges of injustice. For example, when King was in the Birmingham Jail, many people confronted him, and those encounters influenced his ideas about different subjects and topics. King explains in his letter his opportunity “of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia (King 1).” He wanted to establish his authority with the people he met. The main point for this was to urge everyone to take one day at a time and count every day as a blessing. The reason is that all of this could change in an instance.

King was an inspiration to all! I agree with Mr. King’s philosophy of civil disobedience and nonviolence. I agree with this because then you are just hating the enemy. I don’t think that you should fight hate with hate. If we fight like this then the result will just be even more hate. I think that Mr. King thought that we should fight peace with hate so that in the end peaceful will overpower the hate. MLK once said , “ I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” Mr.King was also very brave to stand up for what he believed in and continuing to do this even after the threats he was getting. Know matter how bad he was being treated by white people he still picked up his head. Another quote that relates to what I am saying was also by MLK. “ Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.” - Martin Luther

The beginning of King’s speech starts with his address to “[his] fellow clergymen” (1). Throughout and with multiple examples, King attempts to back up his argument with the appeal of logos. One of King’s main arguments in his letter

King’s audience is the clergy, men who are familiar with biblical figures and events. His allusions to religion

"I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference". Here, he recounts to his readers his connection to the religious community. This allows him to stand on equal ground in the case of the eight religious leaders . Furthermore, in the his semi third paragraph, he states , "Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid." Within that statement, he provides himself with a sort of cover, employing Paul as a relation to himself as well as his intentions. This basically hands to him a high level of credibility in the religious world. Here we see King make a sensible use of God in his fight against injustice, furthermore, since he implies a higher power has in a sense , “selected him”, it implies he is of higher set of both religious and moralistic set of rules and or standards presented by the state. Closing this, he set forth a state of equality by stating, "Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states." where he intends to restate to the reader of the wisdom within his justifiable argument. If not that being enough, he presented a solid piece of evidence in his eighth paragraph when the, Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium for future all non violent protest. As the weeks went by, it was clear that the

King’s ethical philosophy is at the heart of his recognition to the rights, dignity, destiny and potential of Black people. King saw that unless we believe in ourselves, we could not believe in or