Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis

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.

In today’s society it is a common consensus that society has improved on their acceptance of people of different religions, races, and sexualities. Prejudice is considered to be an uncommon occurrence, and that things are not as bad as they were in the past. This denial that prejudice, particularly prejudicial racism, is still prevalent in society is in itself a form of modern racism. This paper will focus primarily on the prejudicial racism that came to play in the Trayvon Martin case as this case illustrates that prejudice is still a pervasive problem in modern society, though it is often thought to be an issue of the past. This case displays the prevalent prejudices in society through the cases’ background, the commentary made on the case

In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for peacefully protesting. While incarcerated, King responded to a statement from eight clergymen which called his actions “unwise and untimely.” While imprisoned, Kind decided to acknowledge their critiques with his famous piece, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” On the surface, this letter is directed towards these clergymen’s criticisms. This is seen in the opening of the letter when King greets his fellow clergymen and uses the phrase “you” throughout the letter.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. advocates for a handful of ethical principles and practices that he claims to be integral to effective conversations and protests between various social groups. He maximizes the potential of his ethical appeal by exhibiting the very principles for which he is advocating not only through his anecdotes and his character, but through his writing techniques in the letter. King advocates for dialogue, nonviolence, and the use of time constructively, and he implements all three of these methodologies into the rhetorical foundation and construction of his letter to the clergy. King repeatedly acknowledges the problematic nature of a society in which there is one sole voice that is heard.

Why African Americans can no longer “wait” “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by Dr. Martin L. King, Jr is a response to the eight white clergymen who wrote him a letter criticizing him, his movement, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dr. King first addresses why he came to Birmingham. Though King does not usually respond to criticism, he responds to the men because he believes they are “of genuine good will.” Martin Luther King, Jr. had been arrested and imprisoned in Birmingham in 1963 regarding his protest activities. Birmingham at the time was a segregated city, known for the mistreatment of African Americans.

" It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.” In this section of his letter, Dr. King outlines a litany of detailed abuses on the African Americans. He tells of how we have waited for three hundred and forty years for our “God given and constitutional rights”. He talks about the vicious mob lynching and police brutality. He talks about racism, poverty in an affluent society, why blacks could not use public facilities, and explaining all of this injustice to their children.

King used words in the following quote to connect his current issue to one of the past, “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungry was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.” (King). When talking about the cruel actions of white people against African-Americans, he uses words associated with crime. Through this, he shows his audience that when he says these acts were inhuman, he means it.

King supports his statement was nonviolent civil disobedience. When people break the law, they are willing to accept the consequences for their actions; when one's conscience tells them that a law is unjust and they break it they are willing to pay the penalty in order to get the law changed. If the Negro communities are not allowed to protest in this way it is likely to become violent. This was not meant as a threat; just a statement of what he feared may come in the future if things were not handled. He explained black people engaged in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension.

1. What is the name of your source and when was it produced? The name of my source is Letter from Birmingham Jail and it was produced April 16, 1963. 2.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written by Martin Luther King Jr when he was suffering unusual harsh conditions in the Birmingham jail, and it was sent to several clergymen who had written an open letter criticizing the actions of King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the letter, King told the clergymen that he was upset about their criticisms, and that he wished to address their concerns by discussing about the inequality existing in the contemporary society and the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. As a revelatory letter, it leads readers to recognize the fact that they have the right and responsibility to break unjust laws and take more direct actions rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to

Many people believe in the word “Activism,” but they have never truly experienced what it means to be an “Activist”. During the Spring of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was embroiled in the civil rights struggle when he penned his now famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. To completely understand Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, you have to understand why it was written. It was, while King was in jail for 11 days in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights struggles of 1963, written in response to a local newspaper article written by 8 local white clergymen. In that article they questioned why he was there (he was loosely referred to as an outsider) and the timing of the peaceful protests.

Usha Pathak Professor DE Walt ENGL1301- Summer II 15 August 2017 Letter from Birmingham Jail: Analysis 1 1. What are King’s reasons for being in Birmingham? How does King answer to the charge of being an outsider? King reasons for being in Birmingham are because he was engaging in a nonviolent direct action programs with his several members where he said that he was he was invited over there because he has organization ties at the jail. King answer to the charge of being an outsider by saying that he was summon at the prison.

He writes about the treatment Negroes had treated and used ethos to share emotions through the writing. King states that “the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation” (6) which shows that the leaders of Birmingham wouldn’t negotiate with Negro leaders to help stop bombings of Negro homes in the city. This reveals the faultiness of the claim written by the clergymen. King also responds to the clergymen’s statement of calling him an “outsider” because he did not live in Birmingham. He responds by saying “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states” (4).

In terms of legacies, Martin Luther King Jr. is an example of someone whose legacy has left an impact on a great many fields. The first to come to mind for most would be civil rights activism, as he was an instrumental figure in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. However, Martin Luther King Jr is an extremely influential figure in the field of oration and rhetoric. His Letter from Birmingham Jail is a work that he wrote while incarcerated in the Birmingham City Jail in response to criticism from Alabama clergymen. This letter is a prime example of King’s expertise in constructing persuasive rhetoric that appealed to the masses at large.

King then brings a dark image based on recent events: “There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation.” Where he continued to talk about how these are hard cold facts about how African American’s are treated in this country. King does this to make the reader question if what people are doing the to African Americans are the right thing. After all, why would you bomb someones house just because of their skin color? Not only that, but even after people are harassing their race, they decline any action towards making a peaceful