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Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Visionary champion of the American dream and interracial brotherhood, Martin Luther King is widely acclaimed for his unwavering leadership during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. As a pastor and activist, King consistently preached a doctrine of non-violent civil disobedience based on his beliefs in equality and the Christian faith. On April 16, 1963, while in solitary confinement in an Alabama Jail, King completed “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which would become one of the most seminal texts of the Civil Rights Movement. King’s patient tone throughout the work, along with his acute understanding of rhetoric allows him to admonish his critics, reach a diverse audience, create a reverberating call for justice, and present a blistering critique of the United States’ duplicity regarding equality. The quintessential text of the African- American Civil Rights Movement, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was instrumental in both galvanizing the Civil Rights Movements and creating the platform for freedom and equality in the present day United States. …show more content…

Slavery left a horrifying legacy of racism in the United States, one in which “blacks” where segregated and treated as secondary citizens. Following the Civil War this ideology was further expressed through the Jim Crow Laws which promoted the social ostracism of all African-Americans and violated the elemental American dogma of freedom and equality. Motivated by these injustices, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. became an indispensable leader the civil rights

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