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Rhetorical Devices In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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OUTLINE Every citizen is entitled to equal rights, no matter what their skin color may be. In the letter, "Letter From Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. responds to a newspaper article in which they described his non-violent activities as "unwise and untimely." Birmingham, Alabama was known to be the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. African Americans were not able to use the same bathrooms or water fountains as white people. There were even some cases where black people's houses and churches got bombed. As a result of this, Dr. King led a peaceful protest in hopes of change. Instead of change, Dr. King gets scolded by clergymen for being “unwise and untimely,” and this led him to write a letter while he was in jail. While writing his letter, King uses various …show more content…

Dr. King expressed the beauty of all the churches in the south, but Dr. King wondered why the African Americans in these churches didn't use their voices to stand up against injustice. Dr. Kings wonders, "what kind of people worship here?" Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for[to] defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?" Dr. King adds these rhetorical questions to express the lack of action African Americans had as they were treated unfairly. This is significant because it shows African Americans the lack of effort put in to help fight for equality. Dr. King shows that action speaks louder than words, and he wants all the African Americans to work together to build a more equitable society for people of all

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