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Letter From Birmingham Jail Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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Civil rights activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had protested for civil rights throughout the most segregated places within the united states of America (at the time). Typically, Dr. King and other civil rights activists were arrested through breaking some unjust law in a moral and humane manner. Dr. King’s arrest in Birmingham CIty, Alabama, was one such famous event, as within the confines of Jail he responded to the bigoted arguments against civil rights. Dr. King achieved this through employing the rhetorical strategies of logical reasoning, appeal to emotion, & anaphora. The first major rhetorical strategy that Dr. King utilizes is an appeal to logos through logical reasoning. The deployment of this technique can be observed virtually everywhere throughout the textual piece, although there are some certain key points where the strategy is used. …show more content…

Lastly, Dr. King employs the technique of repetition, the term of which is also coined as, “anaphora”. Anaphora is used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in various instances. Mre precisely, however, it’s effective appliance can be seen in paragraph 15. Throughout the large paragraph Dr. King explains why action must be done now to achieve Civil rights. This is in response to those who were wondering why there must be action taken now, and why they cannot just wait. In addition, King is responding to the detractors of the civil rights movement, who may not understand why such a movement is required. King uses anaphora by constantly repeating the phrase, “your”. This creates a sense of pathos as it connects to the audience and helps the audience understand the perspective of Dr. martin Luther King Jr. & other civil rights activists. The audience sees all the atrocities done to, and still being done to (at the time) minorities, and thus the use of anaphora helps strengthen Dr. King’s appeal to pathos, as the audience now understands the point of view of civil rights

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Although it’s not a rhetoric strategy the first type of strategy Dr. King uses is tone. Tone is the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing. In paragraph 1 Dr. King uses tone when he states, “I want to try and answer your statement in what I hope are reasonable terms” you can tell his tone of voice is calm

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In 1963, eight Alabama clergymen issued a seemingly hypocritical public statement accusing outsiders of leading extreme demonstrations of protest in Birmingham, Alabama, and urging local citizens to allow racial issues to be resolved by the courts. In response, civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which outlined the reasoning and timing of the demonstrative actions. While King’s letter exhibits an effective use of all three Aristotelian rhetorical appeals, the following analysis focuses primarily on his use of logos. His inclusion of analogies along with descriptive diction assists in emphasizing his reasoning in an attempt to logically convince his readers that waiting for the courts to settle racial injustices had proved inefficient.

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a piece of writing that has been influential in the civil rights movement ever since the time when it was written. In the letter, King defends his and his followers use of non-violent protests to ultimately gain civil and voting rights in America. King’s letter was written in response to another letter that was published by a group of Alabama clergymen telling him to give up his movement and let the government handle it. At first glance, a reader may be tempted to read and view King’s letter as effective essentially because of King’s known authority and allusions to his religion. However, a closer look reveals that what ultimately makes this speech rhetorically effective is

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Dr. King appeals to the clergymen by strategically using pathos to trigger an emotional aspect. He also employs ethos and logos to make his position transparent. The combination of pathos, ethos, and logos

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Dr. Kings “I Have a Dream” speech shows powerful examples of logos and pathos. His effectiveness relies heavily on his usage of these two ways to explain the pain and suffering of segregation. By him capturing his true life’s reality through pity and credible sources allows him to become successful in attempting to end the racism crisis. King states that, “when our republic was writing the Declaration of Independence, they were making a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable rights’ of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Logos is the prime example of King using this event of writing the Declaration of Independence.

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Literary Devices, often used for emphasis are littered throughout both “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” and “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”. While devices such as repetition and metaphors are used in the essays they are used to convey opposite intentions. Martin Luther King Jr., author of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” uses repetition to elaborate on the African American struggle and metaphors to utilize the tool of pathos and include the emotion of those who have been victimized. Henry David Thoreau, author of “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” uses repetition to encourage his readers to take action against injustice. Thoreau also uses metaphors to elaborate on where and how he believes that injustice is taking place.

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Hence, by zeroing in on King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," the examples in this analysis show the way King Jr. successfully utilized rhetorical strategies to reach an extensive crowd and impact social change. Consequently, this model fills in as a phenomenal illustration of a rhetorical analysis paper for additional study on the most proficient method to make such records on any scholarly

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While in solitary confinement for nearly 8 days, reverend and social justice activist, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to the criticism he received for his non-violent protests. Several clergy who negatively critiqued King’s approach of seeking justice, wrote A Call for Unity, arguing that his protests were senseless and improper. Within the article, the clergymen provide nine different critiques that asserted how King’s protest are invalid, uneffective, and simply unintelligent in the fight for obtaining justice and equity for individuals of color. His letter has become one of the most profound pieces of literature of the 20th century, as King uses vivid examples and eloquent rhetorical devices to counter all nine arguments.

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This logical appeal is a call to action. He hopes the audience will realize that it is unreasonable to expect that relying on legal means will be helpful given that the protestors’ efforts have been consistently shut down. The eight clergymen made weak attempts to sympathize with Black Americans in their statement and essentially tried to “sweep” the Civil Rights Movement “under the rug.” Throughout paragraph 10 of King’s letter, the word tension is repeated 7 times. As a rebuttal, King uses

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Amidst the intense Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and put in solitary confinement for peacefully protesting racial discrimination and injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. It was during this time that Dr. King, refusing to sit idly by, wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” one of the most inspiring documents in history. With his respectful nature, humility, compassion, optimism, and determination, King responded to a group of white Alabama clergymen who had condemned the civil rights protests as extreme in their open letter, “A Call for Unity.” Although his letter was directed towards a small group of eight men, his words eventually reached the minds and hearts of the entire country. Throughout the letter, Dr. King does a tremendous job of supporting his argument with the three elements of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeal.

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Civil rights leader and social activist Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a world renown correspondence, Letter From Birmingham Jail, in April of 1963, during a time when segregation was at it’s peak in the South. When King was making his mark in American history, the United States was experiencing great social unrest due to the injustice towards their colored citizens, which would lead to social rights rallies and unnecessary violence. In response to King’s peaceful protesting, the white community viewed “[his] nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist,” and subsequently imprisoned the pastor (para 27). King specifically wrote to the white clergymen who had earlier addressed a letter to him as to why he was apprehended, in which they argued that his actions were untimely and unconstitutional. In response, King emphasized that justice is never timely, and the refusal to acknowledge equal rights was inhumane and regressive.

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In “A Letter From A Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King Jr defends his use of nonviolent protest in order to accomplish racial equality. In the letter, Dr. King uses ethos, diction, and allusions when defending nonviolent protest which makes his argument really strong. His goal is to make the clergymen help him fight racial equality. He uses ethos to build up credibility.

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