Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is written by Martin Luther King Jr. from the Birmingham jail after he was imprisoned for being a participant in a nonviolent campaign against segregation. It was written in regards to the statement made by the white clergymen of the South. He employs rhetorical devices in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to develop the central idea of how action can no longer be delayed in regards to the oppression of the African American community by appealing to the white clergymen. King makes several sub-claims to support this central idea emphasizing that the need for action is now.

At the beginning of the letter, King uses pathos to incite his audience to end the oppressive burdens of segregation. He recounts a conversation with his six-year-old daughter in which she questions why she is unable to participate in the same activities as white children with “tears welling up her eyes”. Children are pure and innocent, making it easy to garner sympathy for underprivileged black children. Since children are universally regarded as a beacon of hope, King

For example, when King says “When you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society”, he is portraying how racial injustice is constantly sinking America and its citizens into dangerous circumstances. His main goal here is to convince the Clergymen to see into the eyes of a African American and get a real sense of oppression they felt at the time, often at the expense of white entitlement. King demonstrates his ability to inspire his fellow civil rights activists, raise empathy in the hearts of white conservatives, and create passion in the minds of the eight Clergymen to which the letter is directed. While King uses this metaphor to make one of the stronger points in his argument, it is clear that within it he is appealing to pathos or the reader’s own sensibilities. The images of black men suffering at the hands of the lynch mobs are so strong and vivid that they cannot help but provoke a sense of empathy and shock over such conditions. In addition, he does a wonderful job describing the atrocities of racism and prejudice in his description of fellow black men being smothered in an “airtight cage of poverty”. To the reader, this brings to mind the thought of being constrained within a way of life that is inescapable because of racism. Furthermore, as

Time and time again, King had been told to just wait it out, that it wasn't the right time and when he finally did go through with his plans, his non-violent protest was confined and charged with parading without a permit. Martin Luther King talks about how he should be able to protest and talk about his cause as much as he likes because the only other way to reach out to people is through acts of violence. And violent measures would not be too much to ask considering how much Negroes had been harassed, treating differently by law enforcement and in reference to the article, even amusement parks and churches.

“Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” wrote Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” At the time, King, being the president of the Southern Leadership Conference, was an influential leader in the Civil Rights Movement and was imprisoned for holding a nonviolent protest in Birmingham, Alabama. On April 16, 1963, from his jail cell, King wrote this famous and lengthy letter, which was a response to a statement issued by eight white clergymen. Although the letter was directed towards these clergymen and represented his rebuttal, King’s letter had a much greater audience, which was all of those who were exposed to his powerful words. His letter spoke of many controversial issues involving racism at the

¨Wait...Just wait¨; For years the only thing negros heard when segregation laws were brought up is to just wait. Martin Luther King Jr. was one who was constantly told to wait, that things were changing, that people were doing everything they could to make changes, and that they didn’t need him meddling in their business. In response to all of these claims King wrote “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” In this letter King addresses many of the issues related to the pace at which segregation laws are changing and how he can no longer just sit by idly and watch. In the text King uses a number of different rhetorical strategies to get his points and ideas across. King uses pathos to appeal to his audiences emotion to get them to see things from the negro point of view, ethos that really build his credibility and get his audience to really listen to him, and logos to appeal to people's logic and compare what is happening with the progression of segregation laws in other countries compared to the United States. Although King is in the minority and has far less people on his side he deploys the use of all of these strategies so beautifully and with so much character that it is almost impossible to not side with him.

Letter from the Birmingham City Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr argues about how defending the use of nonviolent civil disobedience brings out legal change. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a boycott defending racism and later on becoming the prime spokesman for the American civil rights movement. However, during the 1960s, many public businesses were segregated and blacks experienced acts of discrimination and violence. In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail for practicing nonviolent disobedience acts that blacks encountered. While Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in jail, he wrote an open letter that was intentionally meant to his clergymen using a pen that was smuggled in by his lawyers along with sheets of paper that was lying around. After time past, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in the year of 1968. Surprisingly, his letter became the most famous document during the movement and printed nearly a million copies.

Dr. Martin Luther King wrote a letter from Birmingham jail on April 16, 1963. The letter was written in response to his “fellow clergymen,” stating that Dr. King’s present activities was “unwise and untimely.” The peaceful protest in Birmingham was perceived as being extreme. The letter from Birmingham Jail was a letter of grievance to the white clergy, and their lack of support in the civil rights movement. Dr. King explained in his letter the difference between what is just and what is unjust and his reasons being in jail at Birmingham. He believed clergymen are men of genuine good will and that they deserve a response, so Martin Luther king wrote a letter from Birmingham Jail.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who genuinely knew how to capture his audiences with his words. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” makes an appeal to his reader about the injustices that have been set in place by the oppressor. In the letter he talks about numerous things, mortal authority in Christian communities, American ideas, and the suffering of the African American community. Dr. King uses logos to persuade the reader why he s protesting in the first place because the oppressor has broken the negotiation between the whites and the African American. His logical argument to why the ideal way to proceed with non-violent protests is because of the political decisions that have been made. An example he brings up is the idea of there being just and unjust laws in America and as citizens those unjust should be deliberately disobeyed. Dr. King says, “Conversely, one has a mortal responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all” he soon starts to define what both type of laws means…”A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law…An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the mortal law.” In order to persuade his reader about the idea he has do more than engage with the readers emotions. By Dr. King defining what the difference between the two laws sets a more conceiving idea of the treatment towards African American. Martin Luther King basic point is unjust laws do not just hurt the one being oppressed but also the one doing the oppressing. This is more of logos appeal for the reason he is not trying to connect with the reader emotionally but rather make sure the reader understands his cause for the protests.

Martin Luther King, Jr. sat in Birmingham jail not because he committed a crime but because he took part in a non-violent demonstration. King received an invite to a nonviolent demonstration by a local church and was later jailed for his actions (King 1). While in jail, King reflected on the injustice in not only Birmingham, but the world as well. King addressed injustice as a universal wrong which can only be undone by people themselves and not by action forced by the government. He quickly announced that keeping the peace and obeying the law are not the same, the people ahead do not simply relinquish their role because of the selfishness of the human nature. Those who are oppressed will seek to leave injustice behind. Martin Luther

King heavily implied pathos for the readers and listeners to get a strong sense of emotion for what blacks were going through, the major moments of pathos in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" come in the parts about the suffering of the African American community. In order for Dr. King's argument to make sense, you have to understand why the situation is unjust. So, Dr. King provides a vivid picture of what Black Americans have to go through in the segregated South, their day to day lives, what the black community is permitted and not permitted to do. Through this very visual narration he provides multiple examples where his words tug on your heart, and makes the reader put themselves in Dr. Kings shoes, or the other victims of segregation’s shoes. King tries to place this audience into the shoes of the black people by giving vivid descriptions of the trials they have been going through and invoke empathy in their hearts. He says: "When she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people.” He implies the idea of white mother and fathers having to explain the segregation concept to their young kids, it is something good parents would loathe to do. Another example includes, “lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright

It is known to all that Martin Luther King is a famous person in America, who strongly goes against the racial discrimination all the time. Here, in this letter, Letter from Birmingham Jail, it is easy for us to realize that racial discrimination appears and the non-violence action is still serious at that time. As a matter of fact, this letter is coming from the people in the Birmingham jail, stating their inner thoughts about the non-violence action, which just goes against the violence and the injustice in most cases. Although this essay response intends to provide the people in the Birmingham Jail of how to solve the serious problems of the

The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., is one of the most powerful and influential writings in american history. The letter was written while he and fellow protestors were being held in custody for protesting in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. King was a very passionate and selfless man. He only had love in his heart for all living beings regardless of their race or religion. He believed in a peaceful way of protest to not give power to the opposition. Throughout his fight for equality he wrote many important speeches and documents this one being one of the most influential. Sadly his death was of an unnatural form. He was assassinated 1968 in Memphis,

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in 1929. He was born in the shadow of his father and eventually became the Baptist minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. While he was the head of the church, he led a boycott of Alabama’s segregated bus system. Dr. King was also the spokesman for the American civil rights movement that ultimately led to him being honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In 1963, while he was incarcerated in an Alabama jail, he read a statement that had was issued to him by his fellow clergy men that questioned the wisdom of his tactics used in his non-violent movement. The statement also sympathized with the goals that the civil rights movement had set forth. Dr. King advocated and practiced nonviolent civil disobedience, which critics argued that the law should be obeyed even by those who worked to change it. In formulating his reply to the statement, King used tattered scraps of paper that were lying around and a smuggled in pen from lawyers to compose the open letter titled “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”. The letter was heavily circulated in many liberal magazines and newspapers until it reached a million copies and became the single most famous document of the movement. Unfortunately, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

Dr. Martin Luther King was a visionary civil rights activist and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate whose philosophy helped change the world. Dr. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. He was highly educated, having obtained his PhD, and later followed in his father’s profession and became an ordained minister. In 1957, he partly founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and was elected its inaugural President. The SCLC became synonymous for leading boycotts and staging protests against segregation in the south. Dr. King was strongly aware of the importance and advantages of using peaceful demonstrations in order to seek equality for African Americans. He planned well-organized movements based on the collection of facts, negotiation tactics, self-purification and direct action. While invited to attend a mass protest in Birmingham, Alabama for the desegregation of department store facilities, Dr. King was arrested for demonstrating without a permit. While imprisoned, Dr. King wrote a letter to address the criticism he received from religious leaders who felt that African Americans (AA) should wait patiently for justice. The letter lists his reasons for organizing nonviolent protest activities in support of the