Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail because he and others were protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama. While sitting in jail he received a letter from 8 white clergymen stating that his methods were unwise and untimely. So Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took it upon his self to reply to the fellow men explaining his vision and beliefs to achieve his goals in Birmingham. In the letter he had a lot of strategies to make his argument with the 8 men first, he explains about all the brutality records and numerous of unsolved bombing of Negros house bombing and churches because laws as of just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.

In this letter, Martin Luther King is trying to convince a large majority of people that segregation has a negative impact on the community and trying to report the racial difference that African Americans are suffering in the United States. For this purpose, Martin Luther King Jr mainly uses logic and emotion to describe the agony of African-American people who have to live in a racist society. Throughout the letter he showed eloquence and knowledge of the issues of the colored people. Martin Luther King mainly uses the logic and the emotion in his letter, but he also makes use of ethics to illustrate some problems of that society. Through the use of these resources he was able to explain to the world the segregation that African American people were living at that

An unjust law is “a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” So any law that degrades human personality is unjust. King was put into jail for protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama. Everything in Alabama was segregated, whether in schools, bathrooms, churches, or buses the blacks were always separated from the whites. Blacks faced a lot of discrimination during that time and they went about trying to solve this injustice the nonviolent way by protesting. Yet they were arrested, this essay was written to try to make an unjust law just.

He begins to bring in his personal experiences as he faces racism within America with the intro into part two. The title of, “The Harlem Ghetto” depicts Harlem of being claustrophobic and being an expensive place to live at. Baldwin switches his topic of the location of Harlem towards Negro leaders. James Baldwin describes Negro leaders as they try to help their communities, but they do not attack the bigger issues within the Black communities. Baldwin then acknowledges that they majority of leaders cannot make it into congress due to racism.

Although emotions were predominant in his speech, logic and credibility were key characteristics in getting his key idea across; government had to make a change regarding the rights of all African Americans in the country. An example of logos in his speech can be recognized in the quote, “America has given the negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’” He is using logic to reason. He knows everyone listening understands money and can relate to being handed a bad check, therefor he uses this metaphor to describe the broken promises of American equal rights to all men. Ethos and logos are both extremely significant in the making and preaching of Martin Luther Kings’ speech but they are nowhere near as effective as pathos when in hopes of connecting with the

In the Spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stated in a speech that Birmingham was among one of the most segregated cities in the world. King believed that if he could just go to Birmingham, and protest non-violently, that he could make a difference. On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned, in Birmingham, for protesting the civil rights of Black Americans. While in jail, he began writing a letter addressing the clergymen. His main audience in writing this letter was to the eight clergymen who criticized his actions and also the majority of the population as well.

In “The Letter From Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther king uses logos and allusion throughout his writing to enhance his argument for civil obedience. In kings letter he states “Birmingham is probably the most segregated city in the United States” on page one. The strong word, most, really emphasizes his point for his readers to understand what he is trying to say. This fact of Birmingham being the most segregated makes the reader think just how bad things have gotten in their city. It really makes them stop and think.

Ty’ Keylah White Ms. Edwina Mosby English Composition I October 31, 2017 Rhetorical Analysis: Letter from Birmingham Jail Summary/Assessment: In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is responding to a few white religious leaders who stated that his nonviolent reveal against segregation was “unwise and untimely” (1). Dr. King had to be really upset at the clergymen because he rarely acknowledges criticism of his work. He states that since they brought up “outsiders coming in”, meaning that they went to the city of Birmingham to start a conflict. He argues his equality to be there like anyone else speaking on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia but run through every Southern state. Dr. King says “anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered outsiders” (4).

Douglass claimed that although slavery was abolished, blacks were living under a different kind of slavery after the Civil war. Discrimination and racism was prominent and there were few laws enforced. “So long as discriminatory laws ensured defacto white control over Southern blacks, then ‘slavery by yet another name’ persisted. ‘Slavery is not abolished,’ he contended, ‘until the black man has the ballot’ with which to defend his interests and freedom.” (Howard-Pitney 485). Here we see Douglass using logic in order to reach his audience.

The Appeal had a really big effect on the countrywide argument about slavery Walker’s Appeal is the first constant written attack upon slavery and racism to come from a black man in the United States. The Appeal pressed the opponent movement in a more fundamental direction. In 1830, when the Appeal was put out, more than fifty Negro abolitionist groups already occurred across the country. And David Walker’s call for the instant elimination of slavery vibrated strongly with many Blacks. The David Walker’s Appeal also influenced the thinking of leading white opponents who formed