The Rhetorical Ability Of Martin Luther King Jr.

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 paragraphs 12-14 King uses a combination of rhetorical strategies to argue the urgency for changing current segregation laws. Kings selective use of imagery, parallel structure, and metaphors helps bring out the emotions of the eight clergymen, making them feel sympathy and understand Martin Luther King Jr.s point of view.

How does the speakers' rhetoric evoke a reaction from the audience, in the speeches? Political speeches use rhetorical devices to persuade the reader to engage in their speech. "I have a dream” by Martin Luther King Jr, ESPY award speech by Jimmy Valvano, JFK's inaugural address, the Gettysburg address by Abraham Lincoln, 2009 inaugural address by Barack Obama are examples of political speeches that contain rhetoric. Throughout the speeches asyndeton, procatalepsis, allusion, antithesis, ethos, pathos, logo, repetition and parallelism are used.

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.

In Martin Luther King Jr.ʻs (MLK) “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” excessive use of rhetoric devices are used such as logos (logical), pathos (emotional) and ethos (ethical). Although all examples of rhetoric are present, some seem to appeal more than others. Some of the most effective rhetoric used in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” are logos and pathos. While there are multiple examples of ethical (ethos) rhetoric and many more additional rhetorical devices, logical and emotional appliances seem to have an abundant amount of examples relative to these two devices. Therefore, in this prompt, I will further explore the meanings of these implements and examples referring to this topic.

First of all, the very first line of King’s letter was appealing and grabbed the attention of the audience. King writes, “While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." (King, 1963) King draws the attention of the church leaders to the dungeons of the jail,forcing

At the beginning of the letter, King had already manifested his great ethos. He showed his sincere attitude to readers to better answer their questions, “But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms” (King), which enabled him to establish his trust in some demanding readers. Moreover, at the end of the letter, he wrote, “I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother” (King). This shows

In, “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, King writes about the criticisms placed on him by the Clergy and to all the white Americans who believe they are superior and do not wrong. For example when King writes, “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” (King 3), King is speaking to the clergy who dislike his motives and actions. King is stating his innocence and that he is doing nothing wrong and that action needs to be taken in order to initiate a change. The purpose of King’s letter is not all to inspire a change in America and just address the criticism towards him and his actions but it is also a call to action. King takes on the time of a courageous, righteous, and disciplined man who

King’s purposeful use of appealing to reason gave him an upper hand throughout his piece, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and established security in his statements. Taking ethos into consideration from Martin Luther King’s text, we saw why he presented himself in such a formal manner. “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia” (Paragraph 2, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”). By using this appeal to credibility, King earned his audience’s respect and varnished his message. Connecting to his readers, Martin Luther King also utilized pathos throughout his letter to add just another foothold on his audience. “But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and

King also validates his credibility when he shows his leadership credentials. He says, “I have the honor of serving as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern states with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the south and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently, we share staff, educational, and financial resources with our affiliates.” The introduction serves the purpose of validating his authority as a member of the U.S. He is merely proving to the clergymen that he has as much brains on the topic of racial discrimination and injustice, if not more.

“But more basically,I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C.left their villages and carried their,”thus saint the lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns,and 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,so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.like Paul,I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.”

uses in his letter is ethos. Ethos appeals to an audience, the credibility, and the trustworthiness of the writer and the writer position (Kirszner and Mandell 12, 13). The audience see’s King and his followers are problems causers. The audience does not believe that they have any right to come into the town of Birmingham and protest. King challenges the audience beliefs by saying, “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights” (King). This quote shows that king is a leader of a religious organization just like the clergymen. This shows the audience that they and King have something in common: from this the audience sees King a more trustworthy person. King also shows that he is a leader of a large organization that is presented in all the southern states. He also states that the clergymen and King, himself, share staff and resources whenever it is possible. (King) This information gives King a reliable reason for his actions and gives the audience more reasons to trust and agree with his situation. (King)

In the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr was responding to the clergymen of Alabama who criticized his actions. This letter uses rhetorical devices which draw on the intellectual legacy of the Western tradition of ethos, logos and pathos, this makes his letter effectively and persuasive in both content and style.

Courageous persuaders use powerful rhetorical language to send a message to the public; this is how Dr. King accomplished his purpose. In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, published in 1963: “Why We Cant Wait”, by Martin Luther King Jr., demonstrates a perfect example of empowering rhetorical language. King demonstrates this language in order to persuade his readers in a respectful manner. King’s purpose of writing this letter is to create awareness of the lack of civil rights in the Negro community; his main goal for his call to action is to stop segregation. In order to bring peace and justice for segregated families, Dr. King, attempted on persuading the clergyman to observe the civil disobedience that is immoral for Kings people by using these rhetorical appeals: pathos, ethos, and logos.

Rhetoric is the ancient art of dispute and discourse in which devices are used to manipulate language and efficiently convey the author’s message to the reader. In the “Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen” and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr., various strategies and styles are used to classify the speaker’s appeal to the audience. Pathos, ethos, and logos are effectively and ultimately achieved through the use of figurative language, allusion, and sentence structure.