Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

In the Letter From Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. creates a powerful response to a statements from eight white Alabama clergymen opposing his sit-ins and marches in Birmingham, Alabama. In the letter King is defending his peaceful demonstrations and stance on nonviolence. According to the clergymen, everyone should live life by common sense and by law and order and feel that the battle for integration should take place in the local and federal courts and not by breaking the law. King agrees to a point, but feels that there are just and unjust laws. He believes segregation laws are unjust because they negatively affect African Americans and make them inferior to white people. When negotiation fails, direct action is needed to establish
In the letter King says he got invited to jail not that he is sent to jail. Since King stands up for what he believes in, he gets sent to jail. He strongly believes in integration and nonviolence and wants not only the clergymen, but the world to know the issues he is protesting about. A part of King’s writing style is pointing his finger at certain people. When King says, “You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham” (King 85). By using his clever writing style King, points his finger at the eight clergymen. King is saying that it is the clergymen’s fault and responsibility that he is in jail. The clergymen should feel the anger in King’s writing. To make his writing more interesting he uses numbers instead of separating the four basic steps of the nonviolent campaign with commas. By King using numbers he gets to the point faster in his writing. If someone was scanning the page they would see the numbered list and most likely read that list because it is something different from the normal text on a
King talks about Martin Buber, Saint Augustine, and Saint Thomas Aquinas in his letter. The clergymen look up to these significant men. The Saints would be ashamed of the clergymen for having unjust views. The clergymen are disrespecting their Saints and should realize what they have done wrong. King also talks about the injustice that is going on in Birmingham, Alabama which is why he is there. Dr. King refers to the, “eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns” (King 84). This is saying that the prophets left their hometowns to spread the word of the Lord, just like Apostle Paul left his village and spread the word of Jesus Christ to practically every city of the Graeco-Roman world. Now King left his hometown to spread the word of