As he sits in a cell of Birmingham Jail in 1963, he responds to criticism from eight white clergymen. At the time, Birmingham was one of the harshest places to live in America for African Americans; white supremacy groups would set off bombs to instill fear in the black community and withhold racial integration, and peaceful protests and sit-ins were met with unjustifiable police violence, in addition to the suffocating social qualms surrounding the black community (Eskew). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is a letter that illustrates oppression being a large battle fought in this generation and location. Martin Luther King Jr., with the Rev. King uses pathos to invoke anger, sympathy and empathy, his impeccable use of logos makes his argument rational to everyone, and his use of ethos, especially the use of biblical references, makes his opinions more reliable. In paragraphs 33 to 44 of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s response to A Call for Unity, a declaration by eight clergymen, Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963), he expresses that despite his love for the church, he is disappointed with its lack of action regarding the Civil Rights Movement. Bitzer, Lloyd F. The Rhetorical Situation.. Amidst the intense Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and put in solitary confinement for peacefully protesting racial discrimination and injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. On the other hand, logical appeals helps to grasp the concept better and provides facts that prove it to be true. . King concludes with optimism about the future of the relationship between the currently segregated blacks and whites. On April 12, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and nearly 50 other protestors and civil rights leaders were arrested after leading a Good Friday demonstration as part of the . While the Civil Rights movement superseded the dismantling of Jim Crow, the social ideologies and lackadaisical legislature behind anti-black prejudice continued to rack the country far into the 1960s. His writing is respectful and educated, if not naturally, to invalidate the use of his race against him by the largely prejudiced audience. They were arrested and held in . 25 terms. Recent flashcard sets. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were both two African American civil rights activists who were very prominent throughout history. During this letter, King then uses the time to unroot the occasion of nonviolent protests in BIrmingham and the disappointing leadership of the clergy. Specifically, King's letter addresses three important groups in the American society: the white American political community, white American religious community, and the black American society. In this way, King asserts that African-Americans must act with jet-like speed to gain their independence. In this example, King implements logos to create a cohesive argument that appeals to the rational side of his audience: Southern clergymen. A seminal text of the Civil Rights Movement, King's, "Letter from Birmingham Jail," defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism, justifies the measures that brought about his arrest, and asseverates that the segregation laws against blacks in the south must be repealed. However King also deliberately wrote his letter for a national audience. Its important to note that his initial readers/supporters greatly impacted the scope of his audience, spreading the letter through handouts, flyers, and press, in the hopes that others would be impacted for the better by the weight of the exigence at hand. Explain why the examples fit your chosen reason. One example of parallelism he uses is, But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity (Barnet and Bedau 741). In order to do this, Martin Luther King uses several techniques in paragraph thirteen and fourteen of his letter such as repetition, personification, as well as allusion, to support his claim that racial unity has taken too long. The first to come to mind for most would be civil rights activism, as he was an instrumental figure in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. you can use them for inspiration and simplify your student life. Firstly, and most daunting, is the constraint of the letters audience. Dr. King brought people up and gave them hope that one day everything will be taken care of and we 'll all be happy, he said that one day we 'll have peace and love among each other. Not only does he use pathos to humanize himself, but he also uses it to humanize his immediate audience, the eight clergymen. Throughout the letter, Dr. King does a tremendous job of supporting his argument with the three elements of Aristotles rhetorical appeal. In the same manner, King believed that people could unite to combat oppression. During a civil resistance campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. King was arrested. With this addressed, his audience was truly the population of the United States, especially Birmingham, with a focus on those who withheld and complied with the oppression of African American citizens, even if not intentionally. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in 1954. Besides the use of pathos, King uses repetition to enhance the effectiveness of his argument. King specifically wrote to the white clergymen who had earlier addressed a letter to him as to why he was apprehended, in which they argued that his actions were untimely and unconstitutional. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, King implements antithesis -- along with his background as a minister -- to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Southern clergymen, as he attempts to further diverge the two diametric rationales; thus, he creates logos as he appeals to the audiences logical side and urges African-Americans to act punctual in their fight against injustice, prompted by the imprudent words of the clergy. Kings use of pathos gives him the ability to encourage his fellow civil rights activists, evoke empathy in white conservatives, and allow the eight clergymen and the rest of his national audience to feel compassion towards the issue. In Kings speech he says, Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country (King Page 6). Parallelism is useful to emphasize things and ideas to the audience, which, like all the other tropes and schemes. However, this constraint did not ultimately halt the spread of Kings message nation-wide, as it became a persuasive landmark of the civil rights movement, likely due to both his impactful position and persuasive use of rhetoric. Bitzer, Lloyd F. The Rhetorical Situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. Later in the letter, parallelism is used to contrast just laws and unjust laws. Martin Luther King Jr. uses both logical and emotional appeals in order for all his listeners to be able to relate and contemplate his speeches. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law." King uses parallelism to add balance and rhythm to his rhetoric. Greater importance is placed on his tone, choice of words, choice of argument, and credibility, for better or for worse, and he must carefully make rhetorical decisions, not only because of his race. He wanted this letter to encourage and bring up a people that will start a revolution. In paragraph 15 of his "Letter from Birmingham Jail", Martin Luther King uses parallel structure to compare just and unjust laws. He opens with an explanation to his response, stating, Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideasBut since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms(King 1). King has explained this through many examples of racial situations, factual and logical reasoning, and . King chose to write this for a reason; to resonate with those who were not his enemies but who held back the movement through compliance. This comes to endanger our entire society. and may encompass the audience, as seen while analysing, The audience of a rhetorical piece will shape the rhetoric the author uses in order to appeal, brazen, or educate whoever is exposed. We allow people to think that it is okay to act unjustly towards some individuals. Because of his skill in creating such pieces of writing, as well as his influential role within the Civil Rights Movement, and the reminder that Letter from Birmingham Jail provides of these trying times, his letter should continue to be included within A World of Ideas. While pathos elicits an emotional response from the audience to make them more accepting of Kings ideas, repetition structures the speech and emphasizes key ideas for the audience to take away from listening. " Any law that uplifts human personality is just." Dr. King wrote 2 famous works, Dream and Birmingham and each had a different audience and purpose. In Kings letter, he states, We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Funny thing is he had lots of time to think about and write this letter. Lloyd Bitzer describes rhetorical situation as, a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action to bring about the significant modification of the exigence (6). King understood that if he gained support from the white American, the civil rights movement would reach its goals much faster. The rhythm and frequent repetition are used to drive home his key points, stressing the importances of his goal. 1, Penn State University Press, 1968, pp. Furthermore the Kings parallel structure clarifies and highlights his intent by building up to a more important point. A letter, as a medium, is constraining as there is one definitive original copy, it is addressed to a small specific group, and since it cannot be directly broadcasted widely, opposed to television or radio, it must be printed or passed along analogically. Within the article, the clergymen provide nine different critiques that asserted how Kings protest are invalid, uneffective, and simply unintelligent in the fight for obtaining justice and equity for individuals of color. Therefore, as King fabricates antithetic parallelism, he constructs logos and persuades the audience to take prompt action against injustice through the careful juxtaposition of inverse statements. While the Civil Rights movement superseded the dismantling of Jim Crow, the social ideologies and lackadaisical legislature behind anti-black prejudice continued to rack the country far into the 1960s. He uses parallelism by repeating I had hoped to ironically accuse his attackers. Take for instance when the part of the letter when Dr. King talks about different men, both biblical, Martin Luther King Jr.s goal in Letter From Birmingham Jail is to convince the people of Birmingham that they should support civil disobedience and the eventual end to the segregation laws in Birmingham. When King was making his mark in American history, the United States was experiencing great social unrest due to the injustice towards their colored citizens, which would lead to social rights rallies and unnecessary violence. King's main thesis in writing the Birmingham letter is that, racial segregation, or injustice to the black American society, is due to the continuous encouragement of the white American society, particularly the powerful communities in politics and religions. In Kings speech he. He hopes that "[o]ne day the South will know that [the Negroes] were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream" (47), and that "the evil system of segregation" (46) will come to an end. This is the beginning of King's point-by-point rebuttal of the criticisms leveled against him. Right after that, he alludes to another American writing, the Declaration of. The use of pathos is effective because it appeals to emotions and the issue of civil rights and civil disobedience. While his letter was only addressed to the clergymen, it is safe to assume that King had intent on the public eventually reading his letter, considering his position within the Civil Rights movement, use of persuasive rhetorical language, and hard-hitting debates on the justification of law. His use of diction and syntax would align his mission to Gods, and show that he was in the right and the clergymen were in the wrong. King gives a singular, eloquent voice to a massive, jumbled movement. In his tear-jerking, mind-opening letter, King manages to completely discredit every claim made by the clergymen while keeping a polite and formal tone. In "Letter from Birmingham Jail", King typically uses repetition in the form of anaphora - repeating the same word (s) at the beginning of consecutive clauses. Martin Luther Kings Letter From Birmingham Jail is undeniably effective at responding to the rhetorical situation at hand. Your email address will not be published. We believe that King states in the first sentence himself that he does not usually comment upon the criticism of his work. Throughout the work, Letter from Bimingham Jail, Martin Luther constantly uses examples from historical figures in order to unite his argument that action must be taken in order to end discrimination and segregation. In order to properly convey his response to the questions proposed by the religious leaders of Birmingham, Dr. King uses it to draw comparisons which magnifies an idea, but it also commends one and disparages the other. Martin Luther Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail addresses his fellow clergymen and others who critiqued him for his actions during this time. Despite this, the clergy never questions whether or not segregation is unjust. Similarly, King uses pathos to trigger the emotional . Here, King offers disparate hypotheticals to illustrate the necessity for brevity in his acts. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. In the Gettysburg Address Lincoln talks about how people fought the war and how people should honor their soldiers. In short, Martin Luther King Jr. includes rhetorical devices in his writing. Who had criticize Martin Luther King because he was simply doing something that was right and violence was not needed for King. " Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." 'Letter from Birmingham Jail'"' is a clearly written essay that explains the reasons behind, and the methods of nonviolent civil disobedience, and gently expresses King's disappointment with those who are generally supportive of equal rights for African-Americans. Divided there is little we can dofor we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder." - John F. Kennedy, "1961 First Inaugural Address" Despite his support, Martin Luthers audience is one of the largest constraints in his rhetorical situation. The law was written in 1962, but the powerful response pushed the courts to finalize their decision. As the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s unfolded, Martin Luther King Jr. had, perhaps, the most encompassing and personal rhetorical situation to face in American history. The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Lastly, King is constrained by his medium. To get a high-quality original essay, click here. Furthermore, exterior events regarding the movement could ultimately reflect on his influence and polarize the audience further. Being nearly symbolic, King being held prisoner in Birmingham, the most polar racial arena of the United States, made his rhetoric more effective. Here, King combines divergent interpretations of justice to demonstrate the gravity of the injustice that he confronted in Birmingham. This letter occasioned his reply and caused King to write a persuasive letter "Letter from Birmingham Jail," justifying his actions and presence in Birmingham. As King disproves the arguments of the white clergymen, he utilizes antithesis to create logos; furthermore, he calls the reader to take action against injustice across the nation. Dr. Kings goal of this letter was to draw attention to the injustice of segregation, and to defend his tactics for achieving justice. Parallelism is a figure of speech in which two or more elements of a sentence (or series of sentences) have the same grammatical structure. Martin Luther King then goes on to make an analogy to the Bible, portraying Apostle Pauls proliferation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in parallel to his own efforts, stating, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown (1). The clergymen along with others are addressed in an assertive tone allowing them to fully understand why his actions are justified. In sum, all rhetoric has an external situation in which it is responding to. samples are real essays written by real students who kindly donate their papers to us so that By stating the obvious point and implying that moderates act as though this was not true, he accuses them of both hypocrisy and injustice. the exigence is the continued condemnation, segregation, and prejudice afflicted against African Americans since the emancipation of the slaves in 1863. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., along with many other civil activist, began a campaign to change the laws and the social attitudes that caused such a disparity. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and, Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong leader in the Civil Rights movement, the son and grandson of a minister, and one heck of a letter writer. In Martin Luther Kings Jr, Letter from Birmingham Jail the letter was a persuasive attempt to get Americans to finally see the inequality in the United States of America. Both their speeches, I Have a Dream and The Ballot or the Bullet may have shared some common traits, but at the same time, differed greatly in various aspects. Get professional help and free up your time for more important things. Throughout the letter critics are disproved through Kings effective use of diction and selection of detail. There are people in the white community that are already standing hand-in-hand with them and their dreams. Both lincolns Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech are similar in that they both express the concept of freedom to achieve their purpose. The audience of Letter From Birmingham Jail was initially the eight clergymen of Birmingham, all white and in positions of religious leadership. In parallel structure, a writer repeats the same pattern of words or/and pattern of grammatical structure. He had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress (King 267). This audience is rhetorical as the social and political ideologies of the American people fuel democracy and are able to change the system around them through collective effort. Both influential speeches rely heavily on rhetorical devices to convey their purpose. He seeks to make them see the logic behind their protesting and make them feel ashamed and embarrassed by the way that they have been treating the African Americans. However, in the months that followed, Kings powerful words were distributed to the public through civil rights committees, the press, and was even read in testimony before Congress (Letter from Birmingham Jail), taking the country by storm. Just as well, King uses his aspirations to create ideas within the listeners. In the beginning of the speech, King goes back to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence stating that .all men, black or white, were to be granted the same rights (Declaration of Independence). Kings arguments induce an emotional response in his readers. During this period in the 1960s, King was disappointed by the way the white clergy was not in support of the religious civil rights movement and Kings goal of equality as a whole. As mentioned before, the social and political ideologies in America surrounding racial equity at this time, specifically in Birmingham, were extremely poor. Letter from a Birmingham Jail: The Rhetorical Analysis At the peak of the Civil War Movement in America on April 12th, 1963, eight Alabama . The following well-known adage is an example of parallelism: "Give a . There isn't quite as much of that in "Letter From Birmingham Jail," but it still pops up a couple of times. similes, metaphors, and imagery are all used to make the letter more appealing to the audiences they make the letter more descriptive while making you focus on one issue at a time. Analysing a rhetorical situation clarifies why a text was created, the purpose in which it was written, and why the author made specific choices while writing it. To this day, Kings speech remains one of the most famous and influential speeches in. 1, Penn State University Press, 1968, pp. Even now, it continues to make generations of people, not just Americans, to give up their racist beliefs and advocate social colorblindness. In Letter From Birmingham Jail, the exigence is the continued condemnation, segregation, and prejudice afflicted against African Americans since the emancipation of the slaves in 1863. To minimize the possibility of being deemed invalid due to his race, he must choose what he states and how he states it very precisely which correlates to the constraints Martin Luther himself has on his rhetorical situation. In 1963, while Martin Luther King was in Birmingham Jail, King delivered a powerful letter to his Clergymen in order to take time and respond to the criticism he had received over his work in Birmingham. Kings goes on to say how racial equality can not be achieved until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream (King). Repetition. Moreover, King juxtaposes contradictory statements to bolster the legitimacy of his argument against injustice -- in stark contrast to the racist beliefs held by the clergy -- which creates logos that he later capitalizes on to instill celerity within the audience. By clicking Receive Essay, you agree to our, Essay Sample on The Effects of the Atomic Bomb, Essay Sample: The Development of the Braille System in Nineteenth-Century France, Constitution of The United StatesResearch Paper Example, Hippies In The 1960's (Free Essay Sample), Positive And Negative Impacts Of The Columbian Exchange, Essay Sample on Early River Civilizations. Martin Luther utilizes powerful rhetoric to define his exigence. While this fight had been raging for nearly 10 years, the release in 1963 was shortly followed by the Civil Rights Act in 1964. You may use it as a guide or sample for writing your own . In each writing, he uses the devices for many different purposes. Mistreatment of this kind is labeled as racial discrimination. Here, King concedes that the clergy acts with the virtuous goal of justice in mind, which allows him to establish his argument against the manner in which they seek equality.