Andrew Lara Composition & Rhetoric I 11 October 2015 Critical Analysis: Letter From Birmingham Jail At the height of the non-violent protest movement in the United States, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s the letter captured his ability to lead with only his knowledge. Throughout the late 1950s and most of the 60s, King showed his ability to use classic rhetorical strategies in his speeches and writings. While King uses a variety of these tactics in his Birmingham letter, his ethos and ethical views anchor his uncertain readers, allowing them to realize that they needed to make stand. Within the first three paragraphs of Kings letter, he establishes these things about himself. In paragraph three King says, more basically, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here”. This statement is powerful in an ethical sense and it affects the reader dramatically. Most importantly, this statement establishes that King …show more content…
Abraham Lincoln died for civil rights when slavery was abolished when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, but still African-Americans were being discriminated and segregated form the whites. True equality was not shown until The Civil Rights Act of 1965 that desegregated schools, restaurants, and other locations in America was signed gave African-Americans a chance at true freedom and equality which is what America is supposed to mean. For 100 years the battle for civil rights was fought and came true, it took a nation to be divide to go to war with each other. It also started a huge movement in America in the 1960s that revolutionized a country and changed it forever. King believed in this change and was able to lead a movement and succeed with it. His letter from Birmingham Jail is able to show his point that he just wants justice for all, and to not offend or embarrass anyone while trying to reach his, his point being equality for