Letter From Birmingham Jail Vs. King's Ain T I A Woman

Martin Luther King and Sojourner Truth were both civil rights activists in their respective time periods. Sojourner Truth fought for the rights of women and African-American rights in the 1850’s. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the rights of all African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman speech has many similarities to King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail including styling, audience, and rhetorical devices. The writing styles of Truth’s speech and King’s letter are similar, because both use metaphors and rhetorical devices to convey their thoughts to the reader. King’s letter is more extensive because he was well educated. Truth was not as educated as King and her speech reflects it in her

Both authors wrote their pieces describing the way that their people were discriminated against in their respective societies. Truth comments on how she has “worked as much as a man and bore the lash as well!...” (Truth 2). King mentions how the “White power structure of Birmingham left the Negro community with no other alternative” (King 2), but to have non-violent direct action be taken against the city of Birmingham. The audiences that Truth and King are addressing are both white clergymen. Truth is explaining that her rights are not the rights of a white man, or even a white woman. King is commenting how he was imprisoned for his legal, non-violent protests, and how his actions were not “unwise and untimely” (King

Truth uses an analogy when she explains how “women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches,” and then counters it with the statement, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles….And ain’t I a woman?” Truth’s use of analepis is seen in the second paragraph where she repeatedly says “And ain’t I a woman?”(Truth 2). Truth also uses a metaphor describing how women’s rights and negro’s rights are like measuring cups (Truth 3).

King’s rhetorical devices also include metaphors, but he also includes historical analogies, and definitions. King references Christianity in many of his metaphors and even relates himself to the Apostle Paul (King 2). King uses a plethora of metaphors to describe the discrimination of African-Americans. One such metaphor explains how discrimination is

“Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed.” (King