In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter addressed to eight clergymen in response to their letter known as “A Call for Unity”. The clergymen letter blasted the actions of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during their protests in Birmingham. King’s letter summarizes how upset he was about their disapproval of his actions and that he wishes to address their concerns. King’s letter has become one of the most substantial works of argument in American history. King uses all three of Aristotle’s “ingredients for persuasion”. But, the appeal that makes King’s letter so remarkable is his persuasive use of pathos. King’s letter is cluttered in certain paragraphs with all “ingredients for persuasion” but I want to talk about …show more content…
his main focus on pathos. Pathos is an appeal to emotion; Pathos helps to convince an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response.
King’s use of pathos makes his arguments morally indisputable. Paragraph twelve of King’s letter is dedicated to activate the emotions of the readers and it surely does an effective job. King wants the clergymen to understand segregation through a black person’s perspective. The clergyman wants King and blacks to wait for their change of freedom. They wanted King to delay his direct action so that desegregation could be handled in the courts. But King is tired of waiting and he states that the wait is over. He says, “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.” The use of ‘we’ shows that King is establishing a unity between him and all black people, not just blacks from Birmingham. King points out the injustices that whites have brought forth upon blacks. One of the issues he states is “But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim”. King brings this injustice up to stir up an emotional reaction about a violation of the eight amendment. King is very specific with his examples of injustice that blacks face, this is one of the main reasons that paragraph twelve is so effective through out the letter. What touched my heart was when King stated “when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six
year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people… then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” This depressing imagery that King wants his readers to picture is intense and emotive. This imagery helps readers to understand deeper segregation as a black person. King targets the clergymen and the white readers when he talks about his six-year old daughter wishing to visit the amusement park. The whites that casually discriminates blacks does not picture the blacks they want to segregate from society when reading the letter. Instead, they picture a young child who has the same rights, the same hope and the same goals in life. The racist white reader loses their train of thought about the differences between blacks and whites and realize that everyone is a whole. That equality is deserved amongst blacks and whites.
In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. uses his personal experience to convince others of the importance of revising the segregation laws that were in place during the 1960’s. In paragraphs 13 and 14 in particular, there is a lot of language used to persuade the reader’s opinions and emotions toward King’s argument. He does this not only to convince his fellow clergymen, but to inform others of the reality that African Americans faced in the 60’s. Right away in paragraph 13, King uses irony to give his earlier statements about freedom the sense of urgency that it needs: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’. It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.
While in jail, Martin Luther King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one of Dr. King’s longest letters. This letter talked about about why some laws should and be broken and why there was such a need for the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King wrote “when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity”. This quote is important to the Civil Rights Movement because it emphasizes how many black brothers and sisters were being drowned, beaten, and hated purely on the color of their skin. They were being segregated, one example being “Funtown”, an amusement park for the white children only, Dr. King demanded this to stop. Alongside writing about the Civil Rights Movement, Dr.
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. uses a catalogue of personal experiences in order to appeal to the emotions of the reader, also called pathos, by utilizing concrete language, semicolons, and lengthy sentences. He not only entices the emotions of the fellow clergymen he is addressing, but also society in general, attempting to reveal the true situation of the oppressed Negroes during this time in the Civil Rights Movement.
In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail) written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the three artistic appeals of Aristotle are plainly apparent, especially logos. Dr. King repeatedly appeals to logos (Ruszkiewicz) throughout the entire piece; particularly when he says he was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist then gradually gained a matter of satisfaction from the label. He is very impassioned in his language and tone in this part of the letter, yet still makes a strong argument for logic. Despite the overwhelming emotional and personal investment involved Dr. King still allows logic to prevail thus lending him a huge amount of credibility. As a member of the community being persecuted in this case, he might have had trouble remaining objective but clearly he doesn’t let his own pathos take center stage. All in all the use of logic and concise reasoning make a strong argument for the effectiveness of the letter in general.
King gets his point across, that segregation is unfair and morally not right, and that man has a responsibility to act against unjust laws, by using many different strategies throughout the letter. He uses logos, pathos, and ethos to do so. While using these devices he shows emotion, gives logic to his reasoning’s and gives credibility as well. First and foremost, King calmly responded to the statement from the clergymen that his non-violent direct action was “unwise and untimely”. King logically does so by describing the situation where the negro leaders tried many times to negotiate with the city fathers to remove racial barriers, but the promises never held true.
In Martin Luther King Junior's Letter from Birmingham Jail, King responds to a public statement made by eight Alabama clergymen about African Americans being too extreme and their actions untimely. In this public statement, made on the twelfth of April, 1963, the clergymen also commended the police on their control of the situation. Four days later, King writes a letter showing his opinion on the statements while he sits in the Birmingham jail for parading without a permit. King carefully uses rhetorical devices to force the clergymen to realize that they are the ones responsible for teaching morals. King uses figurative language to create pathos in his audience of Alabama Clergymen
Argumentation has followed humans from the dawn of time as a way for us to express our ideas and for our ideas to be heard. People naturally obtain the knowledge to persuade others, either backing their opinions by fact or touching others emotionally, from growing up and through their own experiences in life. We can be persuaded by a numerous amounts of different factors pertaining to the argument. There are four different types of strategies in which an argument can be presented and make the argument effective. Martin Luther King is a key example of the utilization of the strategies as he wrote, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Nicholas Carr also portrays the strategies with his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Both authors perfectly
In the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. responds to an article by eight clergymen, in which he explains the racial injustice in Birmingham, and reasons why King's organization is protesting for Civil Rights. He introduces himself and his actions at the beginning of his letter. He states that the purpose of his direct action protest is to open the door for negotiation on the Civil Rights. He tries to convince his audience by providing evidence in order to gain his audience to be involved in his movement and support him. He also highlights police actions against nonviolent Negros and crimes against humanity in Birmingham city jail.
Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail", was written to answer a critical "Call For Unity" by a group of clergymen in Birmingham. The clergymen were critical of King for "interloping" in the activities of their city. Dr. King said that he had every right to fight unfairness in the country that he lived in. The letter he wrote, in response to the "Call for Unity", and a statement that he would battle racial inequality wherever it was. The "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was the main point in his life. In this letter, he perfectly described his reasons why he felt this way, appealing to logic, emotion, and ethics.
Dr. Martin Luther King addressed many topics in, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. He answered all the issues that were aimed towards him in a very skillful and well thought out manner. These issues came from, “A Call For Unity”, which was a letter published by eight local clergymen expressing their feelings about what Dr. King was doing. One concern in particular that King did an outstanding job of confronting was that of the clergymen’s anxiety about him breaking the law. King addresses the question of, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” by clarifying that there are just and unjust laws. He also goes on to explain the difference between the two, the effect of unjust laws on the people that they are aimed towards, as
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. King's letter from Birmingham Jail addresses the American society, particularly the political and religious community of the American society.
Martin Luther King Jr. uses the rhetorical appeal of Logos to provide a sense of logic and reason within his letter. When he is accused of resorting to demonstrations rather than attempting negotiations King provides his four step plan to a successful nonviolent campaign, listing direct action as the final step and negotiations as the second. This point peacefully refutes the clergymen’s accusations and does not provoke a new argument. King also uses facts to prove a point such as, “There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than and city in the nation.” (King, ¶-5) This quotation validates King’s reasoning to be in Birmingham for demonstrations and not just negotiation.
In conclusion, Dr. King effectively uses rhetorical appeals to persuade the clergymen the cruelty of segregation laws must end. Likewise, he uses ethos by using Socrates’ philosophy to justify the unjustification of racism. Also, he uses pathos to convey guilt, so the clergymen can understand exactly what the African American community is going through. Using logos to justify his argument, Dr. King uses inductive reasoning through the word “wait” to show the African Americans have been waiting for many years. The purpose of Dr. King‘s letter is to persuade the clergymen that segregation laws are unjust.
We may compare this to what we read before in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” If we look at the situation that King was facing at that time, we can see a stark similarity. The people of America had been conditioned to believe that black people did not deserve the same rights as white people. They were conditioned to believe that black people were less than white people. King points this out in his writing, and he points out that the people have conformed to something that they should already know is not right. He points out the hypocrisy of adhering to
Around the middle of the letter, King explains the problems in Birmingham with the ‘non-violent’ protests, which had resulted in police brutality, and no respect for justice afterwards. He shows that black people are human too, and need to be respected, “Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.” He continues on to reach out to the reader’s heart when he brings his child into the letter as an example, “when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’” He also tells about his daughter and her facing racism at an amusement park. This statement is a strong example of King’s use of ethos, because people are typically emotional, and more understanding when a child is shown, not just abused adults. King’s use of emotion strengthened his letter because the message was about an abused community of people, logic would not have gotten his specific message across as well as