Toulmin Analysis In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King he responds to a letter written by eight, white Alabama Clergymen to the editor of a newspaper in Birmingham. He wants the audience to believe that the clergymen fail to discuss the circumstances that brought about the demonstrations in Birmingham. In September 1962, King had the opportunity to talk with the leaders of Birmingham economic community. The merchants made many promise such as how they would remove the stores’ racial signs. Upon these agreements, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, the leader of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, (including Martin Luther King) had agreed to delay the peaceful demonstrations.
Subject: The subject of this letter is to state the reason he is in Birmingham for trying to change segregation as social justice and his use of civil disobedience as an instrument of freedom. Occasion: Dr. King is writing this letter from inside Birmingham Jail for being accused of misuse of the law by performing in acts of civil disobedience to show his disappointment at the leadership of the clergy and laws that he and others of the black community deem as unjust. Audience: Although this letter was initially mailed to the eight white clergymen who publicly asked the black community to restrict their Birmingham demonstrations, King meant for his message to reach a much larger audience such as U.S. citizens. King used this letter as
Analysis of “I Have a Dream” and “Letter to Birmingham Jail” In the “Letter to Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King addresses the criticisms and objections that the white clergymen had made towards his and his affiliated organization’s efforts in trying to end segregation and achieve his and his people’s birth right: the right to be free through nonviolent means. Through the “I Have a Dream Speech” King speaks to his supporters and as well as to the entire nation to make them be fully aware of the injustices they are facing and through this make them stand up to those injustices. Both “Letter to Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream Speech” have the same underlying meaning however. That way too long have the black community been treated wrongly. That way too long have the black nation been “judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character (King 815)” and therefore it is time for them to rise and stand up for their rights.
“But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” He is using the rhetorical device diction in this quote to express the extent of his need and presence in Birmingham. Where ever injustice is in any city within the U.S. Dr. King goes to that city. The comparisons that Dr. King uses in his letter are used to provide an example of his actions to his critics in order to clarify them in Birmingham. “… and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled
MLK uses the repetition of “When” to list 12 powerful situations to the clergymen, supporting his cause of why he can no longer wait. Martin Luther King uses metaphors in paragraph 14 to express the wrongdoings of africans while they are waiting. When MLK gave an example of African Americans being killed while they wait, he uses a visual metaphor to give the reader a descriptive thought in their head. “Negro brothers smothering in an
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written in Birmingham Jail in 1963 as a response to the Clergymen to explain his actions and also to answer their questions on why he did not call off the demonstrations. King was a civil rights activist who organized a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. In his letter, King uses anaphora and allusions frequently. He also appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos to make his letter a paradigm of effective rhetoric. King uses allusions frequently throughout his letter.
The MIA(Montgomery Improvement Association) was formed with Martin Luther King as president. Leaflets were passed around the black community urging them to stop using the bus services. The effect was immense, with countless buses in Montgomery empty. An MIA meeting of 7000 was held in Holt Street Baptist Church, where it was decided that the boycott would continue. At that meeting Martin Luther King gave an inspiring speech that spread the boycott further among blacks.
King’s would face his greatest adversary, the FBI and their tactics use to bring down the civil rights movement. King’s criticisms incensed the FBI’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, who initiated a vicious campaign to discredit King.13 Dr. King, attacked the FBI for sympathizing with the southern segregationists, fraternizing with the local police, and failing to apprehend Klan bombers and murderers.14 Appalled by the rise of the civil rights movement, Hoover singled out King, its primary symbol to stop.15 Although the FBI made malicious attempts to discredit Dr. King, they could not stop all his achievements relating to the nonviolence
In his “I Have a Dream Speech” he is more so talking to the white majority that has held him and all of the other colored people being segregated against and to the black people that want to make a difference in history and further the civil rights movement and get the rights they deserve. Once he has his target audience engaged, much like in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” his language becomes very simple and direct again. The difference is, he is now urging direct action . His tone becomes more “preacher like” as he says “Go back to Mississippi: Go back to Alabama: Go back to South Carolina: Go back to Georgia: Go back to Louisiana: Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair”(King) His assumptions of the basis of American society (religion, founding fathers, and the American Dream) enable him to keep his intended audience paying attention for what he most wanted to convey—the emotional battle of those involved in the campaign for civil rights.
On the 16th of April 1963, a most unusual letter came out of the Birmingham, Alabama (AL) city jail. The penman of this letter was the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who at this point had spent four days behind bars. On Good Friday, King along with Ralph Abernathy was arrested for demonstrating without a permit. The Easter season demonstrations were planned in accordance with Dr. King’s organizational ties with the Alabama Christian Movement of Human Rights. These plans of a nonviolent demonstration were not the initial plans to be thought up, and the demonstrations were met with much more distain from men of the same clerical cloth as King than the conditions that brought about the demonstration.