Summary Of Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

It has been sixty years since the Civil Rights movement began. During that time, Civil Rights activists were attempting to combat injustices and discrimination throughout the South and other parts of America. Since its end in 1968, many Americans think that there has been real progress made in regards to the issue of injustices in America. A poll conducted in June of 2014 found that nearly eight in ten Americans think there has been real progress made since the 1960s in ridding the country of discrimination. While the fight against injustice and discrimination was raging, one man was on the front line leading the battle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King, though extremely passionate about his cause, was non-violent in his approach to attaining his objectives of justifying his cause, demonstrating the trials of African Americans in America, and arguing that immediate action is paramount. While in a
King wanted to ensure his audience understood why he was doing what he was doing as well as why he was using his chosen plan of action. King made his audience sympathize with is cause by using his words to bring about strong emotions in his readers. King does this by demonstrating what the African American community had to endure. King uses imagery and parallelism to accomplish this. The line, “When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown you sisters and brothers at whim…” (King 3) is an example of his use of these devices. His using these devices, as well as how this particular entire passage is structured, compels the reader to put themselves in the shoes of King and envision how he along with other African Americans must have felt during this time. This is arguably one of the most emotional passages in the entire letter. The goal here is to ensure that the reader remains engaged with the text as well as sympathetic to his