Letter from Birmingham Jail: A Powerful Appeal for Justice and Equality
Martin Luther King, Jr. has become a fixed part of American history. He help expand the rights of many minorities and changed the face of America; through his leadership in the Civil Rights movement. He established a concrete legislation through his articulation of his hopes and his dreams during an era of change and upheaval. Dr. King was arrested in Birmingham where he would spend 8 days in a cell and write, "Letter from Birmingham Jail". The letter would give voice to a dissembled movement and drive it together. It is a passionate and decisive piece of literature.
This piece of literature would eventually develop in to creating the greatest leader and largest civil rights movement of our time. History will remember this as one of the greatest arguments ever developed. As it expresses Dr. Kings feelings towards the events as they are unfolding and how they will be and how they have been. His usage of pathos is incredibly powerful and well-articulated. Dr. King Jr., was a Civil rights activist and argued, in his letters, to his fellow clergymen that racial segregation is unjust. In order to support his claim he developed a strategy to manipulate his clergymen. By using emotional appeal and diction Dr. Kings creates and argument to the people a fallacy of pathos. With this he tries to persuade his audience to his side and that his actions are a beneficial factor to society to create and maintain equality. Through-out he develops multiple tones, such as, sarcasm, disbelief and discussing his outrage and disappointment with society on racial prejudice.
Most of Dr. Kings writings lean towards gaining an emotional appeal from his reader in order to make them believe in what he believes. He appeals to their emotions with words like, "when you have to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park...and see her tear welled up when she is told that Funtown is closed to collored children..." This is a direct example of two types of argument slippery slope and part for the whole. He picks takes one of the best examples to make his case and the he applies it using the slippery slope method stating "explain to your...daughter why she can't go to the... amusement park...when she is told that...it is closed to coloreds".
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An emotional appeal is one of the strongest ways and author can get his points across. Through-out Dr. Kings writings he constantly displays his pathos; but properly developed to manipulate in the right direction his readers actions and thoughts through a calculated logos. It shows how African Americans may have felt at the time by displaying how many times their hopes and dreams have been crushed and left with disappointments and sorrows. By creating and writing in this way Dr. King was able to develop a passion through-out his paper that would develop in his audience, by effectively emphasizing the bitterness of the black lives.
Work Cited
- Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. Writing arguments Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "letter from a Brimingham Jail. 9thth ed. N.p.: pearson, n.d. Print.
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Letter from Birmingham Jail: A Powerful Appeal for Justice and Equality. (2023, Jun 17). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/letter-from-birmingham-jail-a-powerful-appeal-for-justice-and-equality/
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