In response to Kings peaceful protesting, the white community viewed [his] nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist, and subsequently imprisoned the pastor (para 27). 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. There are three main considerations to make while analysing a rhetorical situation: the constraints, the exigence, and the audience. King's letter from Birmingham Jail addresses the American society, particularly the political and religious community of the American society. Dr. King wrote, This wait has almost always meant never. This is why Dr. king addresses this matter in a letter about the battle of segregation. 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. 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. 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). IvyMoose is the largest stock of essay samples on lots of topics and for any discipline. King writes the letter to defend his organization's actions and the letter is also an appeal to the people, both the white and black American society, the social, political, and religious community, and the whole of American society to encourage desegregation and encourage solidarity and equality among all Americans, with no stratifications according to racial differences. While in jail, King received a letter from eight Alabama clergyman explaining their concern and opposition to King and his non-violent actions. 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. 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. Original: Apr 16, 2013. His masterful delivery of these metaphors and the frequent repetition makes the speech much like a poem or a part of a song. 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. The constraints surrounding Martin Luther Kings rhetorical situation include the audience, the rhetorical exigence of the situation he is responding to, Dr. King himself, and the medium, all of which are deeply connected. Furthermore, as King attests to the significance of the Birmingham injustices, he utilizes antithesis to foster logos: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere; Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly (515). In this essay, King also brings up why he is justified in his preaching about the separation of African-Americans and white people. Similarly, King uses pathos to trigger the emotional . Writers commonly use parallelism when there is a pair or a series of elements, or in the headlines or outlines of a document. King organized various non-violent demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama that resulted in his arrest. 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. Even now, it continues to make generations of people, not just Americans, to give up their racist beliefs and advocate social colorblindness. 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. From this revelation, the audience will also realize that it is no fault of the Negro that they have been left behind in contrast, modern society have been dragging them back through racism. Saying it that way magnifies the imperative difference between the two types of laws. Despite this, the clergy never questions whether or not segregation is unjust. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter from Birmingham Jail. The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 29 Jan. 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/552461/. With the use of King's rhetorical devices, he described the ways of the Birmingham community and their beliefs, connected to the reader on an emotional level, and brought to light the overall issues dealing with segregation., The letter was ostensibly conceived in response to a letter that had recently run in a local newspaper which had claimed that the protest were "unwise and untimely." This evidence, revealing MLKs use of pathos, was used to reach out to the emotional citizens who have either experienced or watched police brutality. Dr. Kings goal of this letter was to draw attention to the injustice of segregation, and to defend his tactics for achieving justice. In this way, King juxtaposes the unscrupulous principles of the clergy with his righteous beliefs to highlight the threat of injustice, which he seeks to combat with hope. To get a high-quality original essay, click here. 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. Besides the use of pathos, King uses repetition to enhance the effectiveness of his argument. Engels . But immediately after Dr. King speaks out on how after 100 years Blacks still do not have the free will that is deserved. King intended for the entire nation to read it and react to it. The Letter from Birmingham Jail addresses many problems, including the slow action occuring to stop racial discrimination. He uses the rhetorical appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos numerous times throughout his essay to relay his argument about the laws of segregation and the African-Americans that are being cruelly treated.. As mentioned before, the social and political ideologies in America surrounding racial equity at this time, specifically in Birmingham, were extremely poor. samples are real essays written by real students who kindly donate their papers to us so that Both works utilizes the persuasive techniques of pathos in Dream and logos in Birmingham. Both of the works had a powerful message that brought faith to many. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America till the Negro is granted his citizenship rights (King pg. He approaches his argument with logic and appealing to the people of Birminghams emotions. Read these passages aloud, and as you do so, feel their undeniable passion and power. King establishes his position supported by historical and biblical allusions, counterarguments, and the use of rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and logos. Martin Luther found himself arrested on the twelfth of April 1963 after leading a peaceful protest throughout Birmingham, Alabama after he defied a state courts injunction and led a march of black protesters without a permit, urging an Easter boycott of white-owned stores (Jr., Martin Luther King). Dr. King repeats the same starting words when you have seen with different examples of injustices. 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. , vol. Parallelism is useful to emphasize things and ideas to the audience, which, like all the other tropes and schemes. Active Themes. This website uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. You may use it as a guide or sample for writing your own . That sentence magnifies the fact that good people doing nothing is the same as bad people purposely hindering civil rights. 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. Get professional help and free up your time for more important things. In each writing, he uses the devices for many different purposes. 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. 100% plagiarism free, Orders: 11 He begins strongly by explaining why he is in Birmingham in the first place, stating, So I am herebecause we were invited here. Fred Shuttlesworth, defied an injunction against protesting on Good Friday in 1963. Lastly, the exigence of a rhetorical piece is the external issue, situation, or event in which the rhetoric is responding to. Dr. King fought against segregation between Black Americans and White Americans. 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. Prior to the mid 20th century, social injustice, by means of the Jim Crow laws, gave way to a disparity in the treatment of minorities, especially African Americans, when compared to Caucasians. Parallelism takes many forms in literature, such as anaphora, antithesis, asyndeton, epistrophe, etc. Martin Luther King, more than any other figure, shaped American life from the mid-"'"50s to the late "'"60s. , 29 May 2019, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/letter-birmingham-jail. They fought for what they believed in but in vastly different ways. 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 audience's logical side and urges African-Americans to act punctual in their 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. 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.