A Letter From Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr. is a name that will never be forgotten, and that will go down in the books for all of time. He was foremost a civil rights activist throughout the 1950s and 1960s. during his lifetime, which lasted from January of 1929 to April of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and a social activist and was known for his non- violent protests. He believed that all people, no matter the color, have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and to take a direct action rather than waiting forever for justice to come through and finally be resolved. In the Spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stated in a speech that Birmingham was among one of the most segregated cities in the world. King believed that if he could just go to Birmingham, and protest non-violently, that he could make a difference. On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned, in Birmingham, for protesting the civil rights of Black Americans. While in jail, he began writing a letter addressing the clergymen. His main audience in writing this letter was to the eight clergymen who criticized his actions and also the majority of the population as well. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, argues that injustice …show more content…
In his letter he is mainly reaching out to the entire country to try and get them to put a stop to racial injustice. The way that he addressed and refuted the clergymen's letter is one of the things that made this letter most effective. Another thing that made this letter so effective, is the way that he used the appeal to emotion, or pathos, to pull the readers in and make them think about if it were them that were being discriminated against. Martin Luther King Jr. is very successful in explaining how injustice anywhere is a threat to justice