As campaigning, King uses it in his speech in order to express all his points. It was important for King to address this audience as their support would ultimately make the largest difference in the movement. Jr., Martin Luther King. Though this letter was intended for the judgemental and condescending men of high faith, his response touched the hearts and minds of the entire U.S. population, then, and for years to come. Original: Apr 16, 2013. At this time, he is representative of the Black American population and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole he is Martin Luther King Jr., and while this is a powerful position to occupy, the constraints imposed are just as dominant. Martin Luther Kings "letter from Birmingham Jail" strives to justify the desperate need for nonviolent direct action, the absolute immorality of unjust laws together with what a just law is. However, the racial divide was legislated in 1877 with the implementation of Jim Crow laws, which lasted until 1950. Back then, people were ready to oppose unjust laws that were causing inequality and preventing progress. In the same manner, King believed that people could unite to combat oppression. IvyMoose is the largest stock of essay samples on lots of topics and for any discipline. In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and . Martin Luther King Jr. was an important figure in gaining civil rights throughout the 1960s and hes very deserving of that title as seen in both his I Have a Dream speech and his Letter from Birmingham Jail letter. Dr. King was arrested, and put in jail in Birmingham where he wrote a letter to the clergymen telling them how long Blacks were supposed to wait for their God giving rights and not to be force and treated differently after, In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail from jail in Birmingham, Alabama in response to a public statement issued by eight white clergyman calling his actions unwise and untimely. In this way, King asserts that African-Americans must act with jet-like speed to gain their independence. In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. and may encompass the audience, as seen while analysing Letter From Birmingham Jail. Finally, King uses antithesis one more time at the end of his speech, when he writes when all of Gods children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands. The pairs he mentions are all the direct opposites of each other, yet he says that they will all join hands together and be friends. Furthermore, Dr. King had four steps to achieve his goals by collecting facts, negotiation, self-purification, and direct, Dr. Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is a response to Dr. King's follow clergymen criticism. It was during this time that Dr. King, refusing to sit idly by, wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, one of the most inspiring documents in history. He uses parallelism by repeating I had hoped to ironically accuse his attackers. "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," written by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, describes a protest against his arrest for non-violent resistance to racism. Despite his opposition, however, the letter is truly addressed to those who were not against King, but did not understand the urgency of his movement. He proves his authority through his explanation of his experience as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia (King 232), and he emphasizes the importance of addressing the situation to him when he says, seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas, referring to the people of Birminghams resistance to the civil protests that he has been leading in Birmingham (King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. mentions the atrocities of racism and describes his endless battles against it. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" Allusion Essay. 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. you can use them for inspiration and simplify your student life. In Martin Luther King Jrs I Have a Dream speech he effectively uses ethos, diction and powerful metaphors to express the brutality endured by African American people. He said that one day we won 't have to worry about our skin color and segregation and that we 'll all come together as one. Parallelism is a literary device in itself, but it is also a category under which other figures of speech fall, such as those mentioned previously. This use of parallel structure emphasizes how just and unjust laws can look deceptively similar. All of these factors influence each other to shape rhetoric, which Bitzer describes as, pragmatic; it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself (3), with Martin Luther Kings Letter From Birmingham Jail being a shining example. Through powerful, emotionally-loaded diction, syntax, and figurative language, King adopts a disheartened tone later shifts into a determined tone in order to express and reflect on his disappointment with the churchs inaction and his goals for the future. Pathos are present more often in the I Have A Dream speech, mainly because he is bravely facing a crowd, speaking from the heart, rather than formality. 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. Although Kings reply was addressed to the Alabama clergyman, its target audience was the white people. Saying it that way magnifies the imperative difference between the two types of laws. In parallel structure, a writer repeats the same pattern of words or/and pattern of grammatical structure. 808 certified writers . He does an exceptional job using both these appeals throughout his speeches by backing up his emotional appeals with logical ones. "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Analysis. Read these passages aloud, and as you do so, feel their undeniable passion and power. Black Americans were forced to sit behind buses and kids were to use old books and uniforms of White Americans. He ended up creating a very persuasive letter, one that effectively uses ethos in establishing his character, logos in providing reason and logic, and pathos in reaching human emotions. King's letter from Birmingham Jail addresses the American society, particularly the political and religious community of the American society. He points out the irony of America because Black Americans were still not truly free. The letter is a plea to both white and black Americans to encourage desegregation and to encourage equality among all Americans, both black and white, along all social, political and religious ranks, clearly stating that there should be no levels of equality based upon racial differences., In Letter from Birmingham Jail, author Martin Luther King Jr. confirms the fact that human rights must take precedence over unjust laws. is undeniably effective at responding to the rhetorical situation at hand. parallelism really etches into the audience's mind the seemingly never-ending hardships blacks face and the repetition makes it seem like a regular routine they endure. Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail. However, they each have different ideas about freedom, and about what they want their audience to do. Emotional appeal uses intense words and charged language to grab listeners to get them to keep listening. While this fight had been raging for nearly 10 years, the release in 1963 was shortly followed by the Civil Rights Act in 1964. These two techniques played a crucial role in furthering his purpose and in provoking a powerful response from the audience that made this speech memorable and awe-inspiring. While in solitary confinement for nearly 8 days, reverend and social justice activist, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to the criticism he received for his non-violent protests. This protest, his subsequent arrest, and the clergymens public statement ostensibly make up the rhetorical exigence, but it truly stems from a much larger and dangerous situation at hand: the overwhelming state of anti-black prejudice spread socially, systematically, and legislatively in America since the countrys implementation of slavery in Jamestown, 1619. To truly understand the effectiveness of this letter, one must rhetorically analyse the contents. In Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter From Birmingham Jail and I Have a Dream speech he uses many different rhetorical devices. The biases of the audience go hand in hand with the rhetorical exigence of this letter, another large constraint in the effectiveness of his message. 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 each writing, he uses the devices for many different purposes. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character. Dr. King uses his own words to describe what he wants the nation to look like in the future. Martin Luther King Jr. writes his letter while being held in Birmingham Jail after being arrested for participating, in a non-violent anti segregation march. While his actions may not have had much success at first during the 1960s what made his arguments so powerful was his use of pathos and logos., In Dr. Martin Luther Kings letter from Birmingham, he targeted specific people who he wrote the letter for including everybody. '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. Martin Luther in Birmingham Jail, The Atlantic. 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. Not only was this a social division, but those who opposed King were reinforced by the respective legislature that sought to burden him. 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. King was the figurehead of the Civil Rights movement, infamous for his I Have a Dream speech and substantially impactful rhetoric promoting social and political change, peaceful indignation, and calls to awareness. His Letter from Birmingham Jail is a work that he wrote while incarcerated in the Birmingham City Jail in response to criticism from Alabama clergymen. Dr. King wrote 2 famous works, Dream and Birmingham and each had a different audience and purpose. Lastly, the exigence of a rhetorical piece is the external issue, situation, or event in which the rhetoric is responding to. Correspondingly, King urges the clergy to reconsider the horse-and-buggy pace of their methods of action through his logos. Ultimately, King crafts antithetic parallelism to establish a logical structure that emphasizes logos in his argument: the timeliness of justice. Dr. King addressed these communities as the primary groups wherein racial segregation is continuously proliferated (the white American political and religious community) and points much of his arguments to and for his fellow black Americans in the society. The way Dr. King constructs his argument is as if he was preaching his argument to his congregation. Abused and scorned through we may be, our destiny is tied with the destiny of America. (Page 9) The sureness King presents in this quote both instills hope in the reader and allows them to relate to Kings passion. They were arrested and held in . Magnifying the differences between two things and repeating statements with similar structure brings about emotion to realize the wrongness of the injustice of civil. 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. His audience ranged between those who his message empowered, a radical positive force, and those who disagreed, made up of southern states, extremist groups, and the majority of American citizens stuck in their racial prejudices. But immediately after Dr. King speaks out on how after 100 years Blacks still do not have the free will that is deserved. In this example, King manufactures logos through the creation of antithetic parallelism, as the structure of his essay provides justification for his argument against the postponement of justice. In Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, King's campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and in hiring practices drew nationwide attention when police turned dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators. Despite his support, Martin Luthers audience is one of the largest constraints in his rhetorical situation. 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 his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," Martin Luther King Jr. presents an argument through analogy by comparing his situation to Apostle Paul. Kings arguments induce an emotional response in his readers.
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