Martin Luther King Who was Martin Luther King? If I were to ask you, you would probably tell me he was a great man. But why? Well, you would explain, he was a pastor, he believed in peace, but most importantly, he was a powerful leader in the African-American movement that led to equality for all. But what did King believe? Well, you consider, he was a Baptist preacher, he loved Mohandas Gandhi’s ideas of peace, and he believed in a free nation. But who was he, really? What did he believe about God? How did being peaceful help him in a time of fighting? If he hadn’t been a Christian, how would the civil rights movement been different?
Martin Luther King had two generations before him that were involved in ministry. His father, Michael King,
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Needing someone who would be a full time homemaker and partner in ministry, it took him some time to convince Coretta, whose dream was to be a concert singer, but in the end she gave in. While King was writing his dissertation, he decided he wanted to spend his time as a minister before saying ‘yes’ to all the teacher positions being offered him and becoming caught up in the academic world. Though his father had asked him to become Ebenezer Baptist Church’s assistant pastor, King didn’t want to live under his father’s shadow. He applied to several churches and in 1954 he moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and became Dexter Avenue Baptist Church’s full time minister.
Everyone loved King’s way of speaking. His sermons were made up with questions from poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers, giving his audience the opportunity to really think about what he was saying. King wouldn’t just talk AT his listeners, he talked TO them. For 30-40 minutes he would preach, from memory. It wasn’t very long before he started to see the value in emotional ‘outbursts’ from his listeners, though he had had different feelings about it in his past, he now realized it helped his listeners with their anger and frustrations with the way they were treated by
Throughout the text, King utilized the values of his audience to gain sympathy and later on support. His use of diction and syntax would align his mission to God’s, and show that he was in the right and the clergymen were in the wrong. In his letter, King effectively used an extended periodic sentence that consisted of more than 300 words. The sentence has an extreme appeal to pathos, with such vivid imagery
He approaches his audience in a very calm and mature manner saying, “I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms”(King 1). He chooses to talk to his audience in a very non aggressive and confronting way, making it an effective letter. He is able to voice and argue his point without offending or attacking the opposing view. King establishes his common ground by mentioning that some of his audience is taken back by the idea of his traveling outside of his hometown to Birmingham, but he has the right to be doing so.
King needs to give the clergymen and all his readers a reason to listen to him and show them that he is believable. To do this King tells his audience that he is the “president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. [They] have eighty-five affiliate organizations all across the South, one being the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights” (King). This statement shows the audience that he has first-hand experience through the organizations he is involved with and tells the audience through this experience he sees and hear of the unjust treatment to the black citizens in the South first hand which gives the audience a reason to listen to what King has to say. Second, King effectively uses pathos from Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle and the appeal to emotions fallacy within his letter in order to further help convince his audience that his actions of peaceful demonstrations are justified in his fight for civil rights.
(King, 1963). It is noticeable that the consumer of King’s work effects his words, while both works are moving and confident, critical clergymen cause his work to have a stern voice and factual evidence, while hopeful people waiting for inspiration cause his work to be relaxed and more relatable for his audience. The audience in both Dr. Kings letter and speech greatly impact the way he articulates his words and the appeals he
King describes he is disappointed in the church. “All Christianity know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry” (King 26) This appeal of pathos proves that white preachers were racist even though they are men of God. King let his readers know that even though he does not have the churches approval he will succeed without their
Throughout King’s writing, he demonstrates the power of words in his ability to provoke, calm, and inspire his audience. King’s words have the power
Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most iconic people of the 20th century. One of the reasons Martin Luther King Jr. was such a great and influential revolutionary in the context of civil rights is because of his mastery of ethos, pathos, and logos. Even today when mentioning King’s name in a conversation commands respect which shows just how great of a character he was, which demonstrates ethos. King also had the ability to connect emotionally with people of all different races and could easily be seen as an embodiment of the civil rights movement. Last, but not least King demonstrated logos through his words, he was a very well educated man who articulated himself well and could appeal to logic with ease.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s beliefs were a variety, some of his beliefs were equal Black American rights, equality, a world without violence, integrity first and service before yourself. All of these have different meanings but King was strong about what he believed in and often made speeches about them. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. opened the world up to the truth and what should have been done about it. His beliefs are strongly based on how he grew up and what he saw around him.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr is known for his strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience, which he used to advance the civil rights of black Americans who had been treated as second-class citizens for more than a century. King was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He was a man that persuaded people worldwide to follow him during the Civil Rights Movement. King was a very passionate, caring man. A great leader that pushed and motivated blacks to achieve equal rights for all.
His father was a Baptist minister, as was his grandfather, and Martin Luther grew up to be the third minister in the family. He was a bright and intelligent young man, being the valedictorian in his high school class, attending college, and earning a doctorate degree. Of course, Martin experienced racial segregation throughout his lifetime, which led him to become involved in the civil rights movement. Influenced by Gandhi’s actions in India, he led many peaceful protests, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in hopes of ending segregation. Martin Luther King believed in racial and ethical equality, nonviolent protests, and love and peace.
He reveals his hope that the church will make changes to its current attitude, while at the same time expressing his disappointment. Furthermore, King prefaces this section with a statement that he is a man “who loves the church,” (34) and “was nurtured in its bosom” (34) in order to establish his credibility and appeal to ethos. He suggests that he knows the church
Jake Edwards Professor Messersmith Comp II 3/3/13 Kings Keys to Success Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is known as the leader of the African-American civil rights movement, an activist, humanitarian, and one of the greatest speakers of all time. However, what makes him a good leader and good speaker? What makes his words so permanent and ingrained in so many people’s minds? In Kings writing “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, he uses many different rhetorical strategies that not only draw his viewers and listeners in, but also makes them feel powerful and useful.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister and a
He was a civil rights activist who was also the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. King was a pacifist who believed in nonviolent protests. There were many protests he did. Among all these protests, there was one in particular that was very famous. It was the March on Washington.
earned him to be recognized as the face of the Civil Rights movement. Therefore, Malcolm X should have changed his leadership style to work with Martin Luther King Jr. because his way of fighting for civil rights was strategically thought out and ultimately effective. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights movement. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. Martin Luther King Jr. came from a line of pastors in his family, and from the beginning he was on his way to becoming one himself (Martin Luther King Jr.).