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Ethos Pathos Logos In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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The clergymen doubted the ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but in his candid letter, he explained that what the clergymen have heard is only a facet of this argument and that there is a legitimate reason which caused Dr. King and his people to begin protesting and boycotting. In the letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Dr. King explains the reasons that led him to support the peaceful, nonviolent protests. To be able to accomplish his goal of telling the clergymen the true story that had happened, Dr. King used three main methods. Out the three main methods, ethos, pathos, and logos, only one had truly succeeded, logos. Logos was the only technique which was not subtle; this strategy told the cause of the problem in a straightforward …show more content…

King was logos because he used logic to support him and with that logic he was able to contradict the clergymen's arguments. The logos used in Dr. King’s letter fulfilled their purpose by stopping the clergymen right in their tracks. “Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action could be delayed no longer” (09) Here he talks about how him and the other protesters are accused of not being patient but they actually had postponed the non-violent protests for quite a while, waiting for any new changes but everything was still the same. This helped Dr. King convince the clergymen to support him because it contradicts the claim that the clergymen had made which clearly stated that Dr. King and his supporting protesters were not patient enough to wait and see if there were any new changes. Logos had also succeeded in unmasking the truth behind the mayhem in Birmingham. “We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive” (12). This portion of the letter had explained that African Americans are not causing the problems, they are only responsible for showing the people of Birmingham what the problems are. This helped Dr. King because using this evidence, he opposes the clergymen’s arguments which had stated that the African Americans are causing the chaos around the city. With the help of logic and truth shown with logos, Dr. King had proven the innocence of the hundreds of African Americans who had protested for what they believed

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