Martin Luther King was an African American civil rights activist who embraced the belief that all people, regardless their race, are equal. He spent the majority of his life working to improve the life of many black Americans. He also showed up wherever there was discrimination, protest, and injustice. The "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and the "I Have a Dream" speech are two of Dr. King's most well-known writings. Both writings have a lot of figurative language and make logical and emotional appeals. However, Martin Luther King Junior's “Letter from Birmingham Jail” inspired to change the clergymen and the rest of America's perspectives on the civil rights movement. In the opening paragraphs of "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Dr. King tries …show more content…
He stated “When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters. . . then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait." This is how King uses language to briefly shift the reader's perspective. Dr. King gives the reader a method to see and feel the injustice in the world rather than just stating that it exists. In his “I have a dream” speech he used many figurative languages as well but as it was short, many people couldn’t get deep into what he was trying to convey. In his “I have a dream” speech he says ““But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” He repeated one hundred years to show that discrimination still exists, and we must fix it. Regardless, many people felt true emotion when they read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as it shows the real life of black