Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter From a Birmingham Jail Essay

Dr. Martin Luther fairy Jr.s earn From a Birmingham toss outIn queens strain, earn From Birmingham Jail, King brilliantly employs the use of several rhetorical strategies that are pivotal in successfully influencing critics of his philosophical views on well-bred disobedience. Kings eloquent appealingness to the logical, emotional, and most notably, moral and apparitional side of his audience, serves to make Letter From Birmingham Jail ace of the most moving and persuasive literary pieces of the twentieth century. In Birmingham, Ala., in the spring of 1963, Kings campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and segregated hiring practices drew nationwide attention when police moody attacks dogs and fire hoses on peaceful demonstrators. King was jailed along with a large number of his livelihooders, including hundreds of schoolchildren. When white clergy, strongly opposed to Kings survey on nonviolent passive resistance, issued a statement urging the blacks not to suppor t the demonstrations, King penned a letter of remarkable eloquence which spelled out his doctrine of nonviolence disobedience. In Letter From Birmingham Jail, King expresses his extreme chagrin over the criticism of his leadership by Alabama clergymen, his understanding of wherefore oppressed people must resist their oppression, and his deep faith in the fundamental decency of all Americans.In Letter From Birmingham Jail King demonstrates prodigious literary prowess through his mastery of several rhetorical strategies to persuade. Kings strategy to influence his audience in Letter From Birmingham Jail is that of a three-pronged approach. In an attempt to sway his fellow clergymen King argues his position with passion and conviction as he respectfully appeals to the logical, emotional and spiritual psyche of his critics. Kings first attempt to reach his reader is through his appeal to their logic or reasoning. He does this by presenting a direct family between the reasoning for h is position against segregation and argument for its resulting actions of civil disobedience by those oppressed by it. This approach is most sheer when King gives the reasoning for his statement, I have almost reached the regrettable mop up that the Negros great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the snow-white Citizens Councilor or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate... ...l, I must constantly answer to the Macedonian call for aid (160). Petitioning to the readers moral conscience King beliefs that clean-handed minded individuals are more apt to intervene against oppression if asked to move their own ethics. Through his references to history, his elegant prose, and his thoughtful analysis of the condition of Blacks, his essay reveals a writer of extraordinary skill and intellect. His rhetorical approach in detailing the disparity of the oppressed, courageous, non-violent people of his era proves that Letter from Birmingham Jail is without question, one of most important documents of the civil rights movement. Kings ability to promulgate the plight of the disenfranchised of American society helped galvanize a coevals and change the social fabric of an entire nation.Works CitedKing Jr., Martin L. Letter From Birmingham Jail. A World of Ideas. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus.Boston/New York Bedford/St. Martins, 1998. 153-69 Zepp, choler G., Jr. The Social Vision of Martin Luther King Jr. New York Carlson create Inc., 1989. 123-47Walton, Hanes Jr. The Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr. New York Greenwood Press, 1971