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Summary Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail is originally intended to be a response to a statement published by eight white clergymen against the “unwise and untimely” action of King in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. He addressed the apparent injustices subjected to the Negro community in the 1960s. These include biased laws imposed on Negros promoting racial segregation. King argues, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (para. 4). His essay contains a lot of relatable examples that were effective in persuading people to go against racial segregation.
King took his time to build his persona in the first parts of his essay, particularly in the second paragraph, stating that he is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This is an effective way to get the readers to believe his argument since he is also a server of the church like the eight clergymen …show more content…

His repeated expression of disappointment on how the Negro community has been treated by the white men’s unjust laws, even when they were doing a nonviolent protest, helped in intensifying the reason why they need to abolish racial segregation. Before he ends his letter, King emphasizes again, “I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends” (para. 43). It is obvious that the clergymen used their affiliation to the church to condemn King and other Negro leaders’ action to justify racism. This kind of situation still happens in the present, not only about racism but also about other kinds of

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Picture this. On Good Friday, April 12, 1963, protester against inequality, Martin Luther King Jr., was arrested for parading without a permit. It is now April 16, 1963 and he sits alone in a Birmingham City Jail cell with nothing but a pen, some paper, and a solemn look on his face. In scraggly, but intent words, he writes a letter. He was writing to the church clergymen, determined to make them change their ways.

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In paragraphs 33 to 44 of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s response to “A Call for Unity,” a declaration by eight clergymen, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963), he expresses that despite his love for the church, he is disappointed with its lack of action regarding the Civil Rights Movement. Through powerful, emotionally-loaded diction, syntax, and figurative language, King adopts a disheartened tone later shifts into a determined tone in order to express and reflect on his disappointment with the church’s inaction and his goals for the future. King begins this section by bluntly stating that he is “greatly disappointed” (33) with the church, though he “will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen” (33). By appealing to ethos and informing the audience of his history with the church, he indicates that he is not criticizing the church for his own sake, but for the good of the church.

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In Dr. Martin Luther King JR’s. Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King explains to his fellow clergymen the purpose for being in the Birmingham jail. He describes the injustices in the city, and how he and his organization the Southern Christian Leadership Conference are trying to resolve them. Martin Luther King JR. never stopped fighting for his beliefs, no matter how hard he was knocked down, he and the men and women who followed him always got back up and pressed on.

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In the letter,” Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King responds to eight clergymen who harshly criticize his movement in Birmingham. He explains to them why he got involved in the segregational affairs of Birmingham, his non-violent direct action approach on segregation, and in general his beliefs on segregated America. As a person of a non-white race I commend Martin Luther King Jr. on his actions and bravery in the Civil Rights Movement. Due to his diligence, today I can say that I can enter whatever restaurant of my choice and go to school with children that are white or black. This letter allows me to see more than words on paper, but imagery of the struggle and pain of those who fight against unjust laws.

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Summary of the Letter In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, he addresses many criticisms from clergymen. King started out by addressing the fact that the clergymen are calling him an outsider. He also addressed how to have nonviolent cases and how laws are breakable if they are unjust. The clergymen believed that the blacks needed to be patient and that their actions were untimely, but King does not agree. Finally, King addresses the problems in the church and the Birmingham police force.

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Originally drafted in the margins of the New York Times, Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” refutes the claims from eight white clergymen that his nonviolent protests against segregation within the city of Birmingham were “untimely” and “extreme.” King’s threefold purpose to defend himself and his organization, to call the civil rights movement to national attention, and to impact public policy is depicted to the audience of not only the clergymen, but the citizens of the United States, and finally of the world. King adopts a respectful and courteous tone in order to appeal to his audiences, especially the religious leaders the letter is primarily directed to. King immediately establishes his respect for his primary

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Brian Ezenwugo Political Science Mr. Somma December 1st, 2014 Letter From Birmingham Jail The Letter from Birmingham Jail is a document written by Martin Luther King Jr. on April 16, 1963. This letter defended the approach of peaceful accommodations to racial discrimination, debating that citizens have a just responsibility to break biased laws. This letter stands alone as one of the most influential documents of the civil rights era. Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter was intended to “My Dear Fellow Clergymen.”

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is an impassioned, eloquent piece of argumentation against racial injustice; his letter being the distillation of a lifetime as well as centuries of oppression. Through a careful balance of logic versus brevity, King weaves a tapestry that illuminates not only the personal struggle of African Americans in the United States, but connect their struggle to mans’ struggle for decency in the face of injustice. King begins by flattering his “dear fellow Clergymen” (King, 502) while at the same time making it clear that he is imprisoned—with sarcasm King makes it clear that with his free time, he found their letter, and thought it fitting to address them accordingly. Appearing to pathos,

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In Dr.king’s open letter he states that segregation is “an existential expression of man’s tragic separation”(8) of the blacks and whites in the south. The discomfort emphasized in this open letter reflects off of the unjust laws made for the blacks in south. Although, that Dr.king uses nonviolent action to solve problems that he and the blacks are facing in the south, the south continued to use unjust laws and methods to prevent the blacks from peacefully protesting against segregation. The unjust laws that the whites created to cause segregation is what really gives Dr.king the discomfort he expresses in this open letter because it allows the whites to do whatever they feel is possible to make the blacks feel like they aren’t human and by allowing them to do such inhumane things to them gives the whites a feeling of superiority that is not real. The feeling of discomfort that is expressed in this open letter by Dr.King forced him to act accordingly on the issue of segregation created by the unjust laws of the

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In Dr. Martin Luther Kings Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King justifies his use of achieving negotiations through direct action. He solidifies his arguments by alluding to the clergymen’s inability to address the daily injustices suffered by African Americans. King’s use of powerful imagery and word choice of the daily plights endured by African Americans invokes an emotional response that challenges the clergymen to see the topic from his perspective. King’s persuasive style of writing includes logical arguments and allusions to respected historical figures. His ability individualize stories of injustice and segregation present the larger issue of civil rights in a way that the clergymen can relate to.

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Throughout King’s letter he influences the morals of the local clergymen in order to gain the support that is needed in order to change the city for the better. A good example of the clergymen’s ethics being questioned is when King states how the support of the white moderate is crucial to the success of his movement but, due to their lack of aid, the cause had stalled (569). The main goal of the movement was to prove that segregation was unethical and that, even if it wasn’t supported in public, ignoring the problem was even worse than accepting it. If the public remained indecisive and kept ignoring the state of affairs that was in front of them, then nothing would change and the cycle of inequality would just continue even longer. For King to succeed in his mission for equality, he needed to convince as many people as possible that his cause was just and that it would benefit everyone in the long

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In his letter he mentions how ministers have said, "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern. " The Christian church classified the African American movement for freedom as merely a social issue and King disproved that. In his letter he wrote, "…I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. " The mistreatment of people is morally wrong, and the church has always been about goodness, but they have decided to turn a blind eye. By discrediting an established system, he has put forth the idea that not everything is set in stone.

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In his letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” (1963) Martin Luther King, argues that protesting segregation is justified and cannot wait anymore for equal rights. King also supports his claim by first showing the punishment that the African Americans must go through to pursue equal rights. King also asserts the importance of peaceful protest to fight segregation.

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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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He writes this letter to defend his organization and peaceful protesting, yet also identifies the racial injustices he, and many other citizens received. King’s writing was very effective in accomplishing his goal to get his point across that segregation is a very serious thing. King hopes that his powerful and emotional message in his letter will impact how the clergymen, the whites, and many others approach and take action towards segregation. He hopes that they will see how terrible inequality truly is and make the American Society have less hate and more

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