Martin Luther King
At the time Dr. King wrote "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," blacks were going through tremendous struggles in life. Blacks were shunned from one side of the nation to the other. Dr. King had been arrested at the time and was locked up in a Birmingham City Jail. Birmingham was known for its racial discrepancies, and for its police brutality record. In King's letter he appeals to many emotions as pathos, ethos, and logos to appeal to his audience. King starts his letter by saying "While confined here in the Birmingham city jail." (King, 2,842) This is important because King is making a strong point right away in his letter. He is saying that they threw him in jail for what he believed in and he was okay with that because he was standing for what he believed in. Birmingham in 1963 was toxic with racism and segregationist to the core. Not long before, in the wake of the Montgomery bus boycott and the desegregation of Little Rock's schools, 17 of its black churches had been bombed. Indeed, there had been more unsolved bombings of black homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the United States. King does a great job bringing his audience to reality when he talks about h
ow he has been labeled as an "outsider coming in" by the Clergyman. King argues that he is part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference serving as their President. King states that they were asked by affiliates in Birmingham "to be on call to engage in nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary...the hour came and we lived up to our promise...I was invited here, I am here because I have organization ties here." King definitely felt that he had a genuine purpose to be there because of his organizational ties to the people of the community. Probably more so because of the responsibility to do something about the injustice committed in Birmingham. King had a strong belief that people should never be oppressed for far too long. King objected to being termed an outsider, maintaining that no one was an outsider in the human community. In his letter he speaks of this, "Anyone who lives in the U.S. can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country." (King, 5,842) Dr. King was basically arguing the need for racial equality. This equality he dreamed of would never come to pass if the laws of the land stood as they were. King viewed laws as being just or u
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Approximate Word count = 808
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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