Letter From Birmingham Jail
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Comments are due March 31, 2020 00:00
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As You Read, Make Comments on the Following:
- Highlight examples of strong diction and imagery in yellow
- Highlight unknown words and phrases RED. Try to determine the meaning of the words by using context clues, word parts, or a dictionary.
- Identify examples of ethos, pathos, and logos.
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Letter From Birmingham Jail: Martin Luther King
Context: King’s letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963, titled “A Call for Unity.” The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets.
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
affiliates: people linked
2I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
In the letter, it discusses how MLK believes since the group of people he is addressing have already seen the side of the argument that is against “outsiders coming in”, it is only fair they listen to his side.
MLK gives himself credibility by establishing himself as an important figure with the words "So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties.
He proves he is credible on the content he is discussing by stating “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Confrence”
MLK gives his credibility and background by stating “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.”
He is using him serving as the president of the SCLC that he is credible and reliable.
Yes throughout the text he uses his credibility to show ethos
The speaker is showing his credibility and trying to gain the reader’s trust.
He is proving that he is credible and can speak on this topic.
he uses his position as president of the confrence to convince the reader they should listen to him
When Martin Luther King says “…serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference…” it shows that he is in a position of authority in an important group, which gives the elergymen reason to believe he is credible.
He is saying that since he is the president of the confernece that the “outsider coming in” should listen to him and know what he’s doing
he talks about how he is a credible source for what he is talking about
He uses ethos by showing he is a credible source due to his servings in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
By saying that he is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference he is gaining credibility.
In this sentence he is showing that he is credible to speak on the subject and he knows what he’s talking about
Proving he’s credible to convince listeners that what he’s saying is right
This is him giving he title to show he is a credible source for this topic
By presenting himself with the title of “president” over the leadership conference, it deepens the sense of authority he has.
The author is giving the number of organization they have across the state.
He is attempting to gain credibility by stating that he had positive intentions of being there, and he was invited there, therefore having no intention of causing harm. Rather to create peace.
The author shows his credibility
He shows his credibility by informing them that he has organizational ties.
The author talks about why he is credible.
He shows credibility because he was invited there.
3But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
This quote represents ethos because it indirectly gives Martin’s view on the reason he is in jail.
He’s drawing in the audience to display his source of selflessness and righteousness.
I think you are right about it being pathos, it could also be considered ethos because he is justifying his actions by comparing himself to bible characters making himself look more credible.
He’s drawing a feeling of courage and selflessness
The author gives a real world scenario to connect to and give an example of what he is trying to get across to the audience.
He is drawing a feeling of courage and selflessness to bring the readers feelings out.
cognizant: aware
4Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
the goal of this comment is to make the reader feel moved or make the reader want to change something
The strong diction of this sentence is meant to evoke feelings of injustice and want for equality.
He makes the people feel united and responsible by saying that this isn’t just the fight of those directly in the action, it’s every American’s fight.
This is to make the reader beleive that this is an enormous issue
He widens the connection and emotion on the topic saying its a broad issue.
Dr Kings diction helps to evoke many feelings out of the readers. For example, feelings of unity and a want for equality between all.
deplore: hate
5You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative …
6We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
This sentence is used to spark a sense of impatient rage from the people to the oppressors.
The author uses certain words to impact the reader’s emotions.
He uses pathos here to make a profound statement to appeal to the reader.
The author uses strong diction to connect to the reader and connect emotionally
The phrase “painful experience” appeals to the reader’s emotions.
It says that they have been through an experience before, which shows that it can be done (logos) and that they know what they are talking about because they have first hand experience (ethos).
Its pathos becaue they say “painful experience” and it’s emotional
He is saying that since he has been through painful experience, he knows a lot about the subject
Using his “painful experience” to appeal to readers emotions with pathos
affluent: rich
7We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
The author talks about several situations that the the people he is addressing could relate on an emotional level to most of these situations.
Used a statistic on how long black people waited for rights
He gives a statistic on how long black people have waited for their rights.
The two work together to create possible guilt in the readers mind by giving a fact about their suffering
Dr King does a good job of mixing pathos and logos to get his point across
Martin in giving a specific time (statistics) on how long African Americans have been waiting for their “god given rights” which represents logos. For pathos he says this most likely in a way that makes people feel guilty.
when he gives the example of the child talking to his father he is trying to relate to others in the audience
He’s sharing things that he had to explain to his daughter and how she got sad about it. It draws a sad feeling from the readers.
he uses strong language and a story to draw emotion from the reader
Martin Luther King is telling the tragedies of the crazy and ruthless things that were being done to black people to try to get them to realize that what was happening was hurting more than helping. Appeals to emotion because if it were to happen to their families, they would be upset.
He uses stories and quotes from other people to make the reader more emotional. Especially when his son said “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”
The author uses this to help the reader comprehend how many blacks are in poverty. “Twenty million negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty”
The author uses a ton of imagery to get his point across and uses pathos to appeal to our emotions with what life was like for the people.
He creates a connection with the reader by showing what the discrimination is doing to his children. This makes the reader sad.
He uses sentences that would draw emotion from the readers and connect to their feelings.
He uses very strong imagery and diction to influence and jerk at our emotions and make us feel passionate towards the topic
I think its very clear that he uses pathos in this sentence. With the inclusion of tear jerking examples of segregation towards African Americans, it draws emotion and is there for pathos.
He uses a few examples that bring sympathy out of the reader like, seeing his daughter cry because she couldn’t go to a place where colored people weren’t allowed, the black community being killed or abused, etc.
Using a word like since and talking about former events, it seems that they have background and experience. Which makes it ethos
sublime: outstanding
8... I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
The author is trying to get us to sympathize for them. He does this by using descriptive diction to describe the ruthless crowd that they face, and also the pain of leading by yourself.
By bringing up Rosa Parks along with other old women and using words like “Battered”, he might intend for readers to sympathize with them.
9Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?
He could’ve meant for the reader to sympathize with him and how he was locked up without reason. I certainly felt bad, so that might’ve been his intention.
The author is trying to evoke emotions here as he describes how awful the conditions are compared to what it could be.
It’s pathos because he’s trying to make it seem emotional the way he words the sentence
prejudice: discrimination
10... Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
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He uses ethos to show his credibility and by stating his ties to a number of organizations.
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