Peace Over Animosity Martin Luther King Jr., widely regarded as one of the most impactful and influential peaceful protestors of all time, carries many characteristics that categorize him as a leader. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, King traveled across the country in his search for constitutional freedom and recognition for African Americans. King’s protests started in 1955 during the bus boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama, and ended in 1968 after King was assassinated by James Earl Ray. In his famous prison note, “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” King emphasizes and creates arguments based on certain injustices that have victimized him and his people, prior to, and after, catapulting him into this leadership position. King’s position on segregation …show more content…
powerfully utilizes the likes of pathos and logos to appeal to the reasons of the general intended audience of the average white males and females, in addition to other government officials who have power and control the destiny over the public. Pathos, which appeals to the emotions of the reader, is utilized on many different occasions throughout “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” as King vividly describes the suffering and emotional distress that the African American population was facing in America at that time. For instance, King invokes the use of pathos by recounting the emotional toll taken on him and his people, exclaiming, “When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television...you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’...then you will understand why we find it emotion for the common white man, and to display that the pain the African American community endured on a daily basis did not go unfelt, and that every harsh and explicit word uttered towards them carries a heavy