Letter from Birmingham Jail

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” is a response to the critical letter he had received from eight Alabama clergymen. In their letter, the clergymen assert that in dealing with “convictions in racial matters,” he and his fellow protesters must patiently wait to attend court and do so legally. Ignoring the warning, the promised march protesting the racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans was held in Birmingham City. King had participated in the protest and was thereby arrested “…on a charge of parading without a permit” (King 1963, 4). Thus, in his letter, King politely reasons with the clergyman that the march had been a “nonviolent direct-action” and attempts to persuade his audience that because African Americans are treated unfairly despite laws that remove racial segregation, their fight for the rights given to them in the Constitution is justified. The comparison and contrast, ethos, and pathos in King's letter help convince his audience that racial segregation (Ayton 2005, pp. 124).

Martin Luther King Junior's note from Birmingham prison is a mighty answer to clergymen's attitudes on his movement. King presents a very convincing persuasion, which may have assured numerous white moderates (1) to reassess their ignorance on the topic of segregation and racism. (King 1963, 13) He extends to interpret his attitudes on just and unjust regulations, asserting that every individual has a lesson blame to conclude for themselves if it is just to pursue a regulation which proceeds contrary to their beliefs.

King lays out the very dark groups stand at the time and efforts in the direction of an action, and recounts the broad spectrum of distinct persons each changing in attitude on it or not their conclusion is in their control. King's efforts are depicted in this note to the clergyman as very continual but at the identical time very persevering with his oppressors , and his discouragements with the place of adoration with which his fathers and their fathers counted on which endows readers to realize his preceding place with the church(King 1963, 13).

King's reason for composing this note was to announce his broad assembly on the truth of what was occurrence and to dispute contrary to the oppressors who asserted on mentioning to these occurrences as pointless demonstrations (Beito 2004, pp. 68). The clergymen had advised King to remove from dispute in Birmingham; they inferred that the effort was of no use and to find correct passages for its accomplishment. (King 1963, 13)

Dr. King applies imagination in his writing that builds the audience visualize and see what he has seen. He experiences that the white moderates have strong family values, so he reaches to them by rendering stories about children. There is one story about a little girl who has just seen an ad on television and when she asks her father if she can go, he has to look his daughter in the eye and tell her that “Funtown is closed to colored children”(King 1963, 561). He then goes on ...