Persuasion In Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail

Persuasion is a highly important tool to anyone whose main focus is to vocalize a point of view and have others support the argument that is being asserted. There are several different kinds of persuasion techniques, such as anchoring, which is the "human tendency to rely too heavily on the piece of information presented first when making a decision, and once the anchor is set, there's a bias toward that value" (Sanders 2017). It is dependent on the situation, though, which technique is more or less effective. Because persuasion is such a universally important skill to have, especially within the realms of commercialism, the advertising industry, and politics, figuring out more effective persuasive techniques is something that many people

In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," King says, "The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation" (King 2). Here, King is explicitly stating what his motives are as an activist. In his letter, he uses the art of storytelling frequently, either through analogies or generalizations. King demonstrates that storytelling is an artful and effective persuasive technique that he uses to connect with his audience and encourage them to agree with his side of the argument. This prompts one to consider if storytelling can be used in other ways to still promote an argument, or if storytelling is really an effective technique in the first place. This paper proposes that storytelling is in fact a powerfully effective way to persuade an audience due to its multifaceted properties, such as to make connections and to provide evidence to a