Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

Dr. King’s earnest “Letter from Birmingham Jail” seeks to both justify the past and forthcoming actions being taken within the Civil Rights Movement as well as create an understanding of the importance and urgency of what was considered to most at the time a disruption of the public peace.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King Jr. utilizes several rhetorical devices such as ethos, logos, and pathos, while addressing the clergymen that disagreed with his methods of nonviolent protest. King wrote with an air of rationality, personal experience, and appeal. He drew on the sympathies of a multitude of audiences all while including logic. King’s effective and persuasive address to the topic of racial injustice in the 1960’s can be correlated to today’s societal movement Black Lives Matter.

“The Letter From a Birmingham Jail” was written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while incarcerated in response to his fellow preachers telling him to be more patient in the pursuit of civil rights. The purpose of the letter is to explain the reasons that civil rights should be actively pursued through protest. MLK seeks to persuade the recipients of the letter to side with him in terms of pushing for equality as fast as possible. King uses anecdotes, anaphora, and imagery to increase both the emotional impact of the speech by showing the struggle that him and others have gone through, as well as the authority of King himself by showing that his views on the movement are very well thought out and backed by solid reasoning.

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.

All three works by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. narrow their purpose of their piece on fighting against social injustice by using the rhetorical skills contained in They say, I say to provide legitimate, persuasive, and well thought out arguments.

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

Martin Luther King lived in a time where Negro people were faced with a multitude of social injustices. King was actively participating in passive protests opposing the laws which upheld these injustices. In his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” King replies to the criticism of eight clergymen, who called him and his companions extremists and law breakers (King 187). In his letter of response, King both shows his disappointment with these men, as well as plead with them to see his side. King wants his letter to make the clergymen to look past his skin color and simply see him as a brother in the church.

King’s letter he really tries to drive home the point that the African-Americans are the victims in this and they should have their basic rights. He writes “Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber” (King 4). The thought process is very logical, but it is hard for people at times to distinguish between the two. In the situation of an actually robbery, the police would not arrest someone for having their items stolen. They would do their best to find the thief and bring them to justice. The same should apply to segregation. They should be helping to bring justice for the people who have their rights stolen. Instead many see the African-Americans as the robbers. The African-Americans are fighting to their basic civil liberties and to be treated as the rest of the Americans are. The police and other people greet this with violence and throwing them in jail instead of trying to aid them. As a result, Dr. King makes sure that his protests are nonviolent on his part. In his letter he is clear that he believes “it is wrong to use immoral means to attain morals ends” (King 7). He believes that you must always have pure intentions and take the necessary positive steps to reach a positive end

As a response to an unjust proposition from the Alabama clergymen, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to persuade the people to look things from his point of view. The clergymen wrote that the protests should stop and the problem of civil rights should be attempted as a negotiation, yet they did not specify when they were going to start. King utilizes different appeals to prove that black people should have the same rights as the white people. In his letter, he utilizes logical, ethical and emotional to prove that people have the right to break any unfair laws.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” emphasizes the need for civil disobedience when faced with unjust laws. This idea contradicts Socrates’ claim made in Crito, that one must follow the law under all circumstances. In this paper, I will argue that Socrates is not a proponent of civil disobedience based on King’s definition of civil disobedience and Socrates’ charges. Moreover, I will argue that both Socrates and King disagree with one another based on the concept of civil disobedience—breaking the law and rejecting certain ideals.

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s , “ Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King responds to the judgments of a group of clergymen , after King 's arrest, by writing a letter explaining why the clergymen 's judgments were wrong. In his letter, king brings very reasonable and valid points that challenge the judgments of the ministers. The main arguments that king makes would be the reason of his existence in Birmingham, white power structure and its racial injustice, and finally why negotiation has brought up impatience and little to no solutions. The overall structure of King’s letter was well organized and the letter delivered valid explanations as to why the clergymen 's judgments were wrong and why it is that action had to be taken in order to grasp the attention needed to settle the conflicts of racial injustice the black community in Birmingham was facing.

In his letter, “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior uses a didactic tone to inform his audience, eight critical clergy members, that direct action and peaceful protests are the only solution to racial segregation-a moral dilemma. This letter comes after Martin Luther was apprehended by police and confined in a jail cell due to an “extreme” peaceful protest against racist ideals. The didactic tone utilized in the letter can be characterized by Luther’s diction, language, and imagery.

Aristotle, a famous philosopher once said: “ It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs” (Aristotle). He believed that rhetoric was more powerful than fists would ever be. Another man, a very influential social activist, shared the same ideals, preaching to his people to fight for their freedom with words and not their fists. Martin Luther King Jr. used the power of rhetoric during the civil rights movement to gain equality for the black community. MLK was a master of rhetoric and used his knowledge of proper arguments to sway the

Patience is the ability to accept and tolerate trouble and suffering without having a negative response. When one is put in a situation where they are feeling oppressed or mistreated, their tolerance on not attacking is put in a thin line; at that moment the decision is to either react in a negative or positive way. Throughout the Civil Right Era, patience and toleration was tested as many African Americans lived in oppression and segregation were they were denied their American rights. With tactics such as sittings in cafes and nonviolent protests they hoped to establish a country with justified laws for all men and women.

Meanwhile, in 1963 King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), continued to fight for civil rights but this time they marched to Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham was the worst city for the blacks in the south. King went to the city’s leaders and demanded that they change the laws about public places being segregated, but the leaders of Birmingham refused to change. Many blacks were afraid to protest because they were scared that they would end up in jail. King responded with, “If the road to freedom leader through the jailhouse … then, turnkey, swing wide the gates!” (Hakim 18). On April 12, 1963 King led a march down the streets of Birmingham. They headed towards City Hall, but never made it because the police stopped the