Rhetorical Essay on "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King

Introduction

In the inspirational writing by Martin Luther King on "Letter from Birmingham Jail" appealing to the undeniable injustice perpetrated against his likes. The letter was a counterargument and rebuttal response to the eight white clergymen after making a conclusive analysis of their unjust proposal. Throughout the letter King made effective use of rhetorical appeals; logos, pathos, and ethos, to ensure that he directly catches the attention of his audience. This paper will discuss the three artistic appeals of Aristotle's framework in the rhetoric analysis of the fourteenth paragraph of the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" especially the apparent use of logos.

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In the entire letter, Martin Luther King Jr. establishes that the "Letter from Birmingham Jail," has him as a legitimate authority in his audience's eyes. He makes a logical appeal on the trials his likes have gone through over the years for nearly four centuries. According to King in his fourteenth paragraph in the Birmingham letter justifies his arguments and the cause of actions that attributed to his current situation with the necessity of immediate action. King makes use of religious illustrations so he tries to persuade the clergy to understand his position to act on behalf of his likes despite their hypocritical misjudgment of his situation when he remained locked up in the Jail of Birmingham citing the inhumane acts him and his people were facing over the years appealing directly to his audience, the white clergymen. Though this logos appeal persuasion Kings tried to put his efforts in getting the legal support from the men of God in his course of actions that were making him and his people suffered for so many years without successful addressing to the injustice challenges facing them. In his urgent call for action, King alludes with the philosophical ideologies and saints perception on the liberation of his people from the long duration of slavery and oppression hindering their progression in the social stratification. In the letter King makes strong pathos appeal when he makes a recount of his personal experiences in the well rounded argument and counter-argument on the hypocritical proposal by the clergymen urging him to stop his radical movement in the sensitization of the African American legal and moral struggle to liberate themselves from the over three century struggle to stand their ground on their social responsibility to deliver their likes from social oppression and hypocrisy from the pulpit perspective of the clergymen. King is sarcastic in his address of the pathos to give his solid understanding on the cause of action for himself and the movement he was leading.

In his application of the ethos rhetorical appeal, King employs the Aristotle persuasion of credibility in recognition of the inherent religious knowledge and truth in the understanding of the authorial assumptions of personal goodness in ensuring that every other person is convinced to your certainty. In this sense, the perception of the credibility of the persuader as he appeals to his audience, the clergymen he possesses to the power of persuasion on the logistics of the courts of personal goodness. In the Aristotle justification of belief of his stand to be on the most appropriate understanding of injustices and crude treatment of African Americans in the hands of the white clergymen who were mandated to preserve equity to all humankind (DeForrest, 118). Exploiting the ethos rhetorical appeal in establishing the credibility of his subject in paragraph fourteen of the Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King Jr. was very particular on the discrimination and injustices in racial America. His opening statement in a majority of the opening sentences, Kings appeals to the audience like his equals though he was sarcastically aware that even the men of God did not perceive him as their equal because of their skin color differences. He starts most of the paragraphs with the phrase "My dear fellow clergymen....." (McCormack, 131) making such strong ethos appeal King can make his audience aware that he was at the same level with them and they were no any better than him. His satire is stronger when he justifies his stay in jail claiming that he had unfinished businesses to attend to among his people in custody as well as injustice was there with him in Birmingham jail. Throughout his address on the wrongs inflicted on the African American flocks of the society, King is stunt on his ethos and pathos as well as the logos appeal in ensuring that his voice was standing in for his people and his interests in providing that the clergymen were aware of their role in the society to reinforce social and political justice among all people to eradicate racism in the American culture.

In the awakening of the rhetorical pathos appeal of the audience's emotional credibility of the situation affecting him during his stay in Birmingham Jail and the faulty parallelism affecting his people. Throughout the entire paragraph, King to appeal to the audiences' emotional understanding of the situations and the pain and trouble he and his people had suffered. Using the emotional appeal in the Aristotle principles of communication King can catch the attention of the audiences' emotion to persuade them on the outrageous acts perpetrated to the African American people over the years. As he tosses the ball to and from the clergymen's court he can appeal to their emotional understanding of the pains and suffering he was enduring in jail and the reason he was very determined to open their eyes to the bitter truth on the long struggle colored Americans had over the years faced due to problems created by the hypocritical white men including the clergy who were perceived to treat every child of God equally and be the protector of their brothers though King was convinced they saw him as their lesser equal in their arguments in their previous letters. In his justification of his continued struggle for civil rights movement, he was emotionally appealing to the ruthless treatment his likes had suffered in the hands of evil whites like the likes of Adolf Hitler. Throughout the paragraph, King can communicate his disappointment in the church because of their double standards in the matters that were affecting him and his people although they were deceiving humanity of their commitment in common good. Through this issues of the clergy's undefined stand on the historical extremists, he demonstrates his appeal of logos to show the lack of consistent and positive attitude toward the much needs change for his likes and the civil rights as a whole.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in the Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King Jr. makes rhetorical appeal to the audience, the eight clergymen whom he tries to address their previous proposal in emotional, logical and spiritual understanding of his people's situation as well as the hypocritical position held by the church against civil rights for the colored community. In his bid to make rhetorical appeal he can persuade the audience on his point of view.

Works Cited

DeForrest, Mark Introducing Persuasive Legal Argument Via The Letter From A Birmingham City Jail, The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, 2009, 15 (1), p. 109 - 164.

McCormack, Krista C. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos: The Benefits of Aristotelian Rhetoric in the Courtroom, 2014, 7 Wash. U. Jur. Rev. pgs 131. Available at: http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence/vol7/iss1/9

Costanzo, Angelo, "Equiano, Olaudah," The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, eds. In William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, Trudier Harris, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 257-258.

Shields, E. Thomson, "Equiano, Olaudah," American National Biography Online, 24 January 2008, http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00512.html.