Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s letter “A Letter from Birmingham,” was a good example of a counter argument from “A Call to Unity” by eight white clergymen. His inspiration for writing the letter came from clergymen’s unjust proposals affecting African-Americans. Dr. King effectively created his argument by using logos, pathos and ethos. What also helped his case were his personal experiences. He lived during the time where segregation was everywhere in the United States, not as a white man, but as an African-American.
King outlined the reasons for these methods in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He stated that nonviolent protest was used because it dramatized the issues of segregation and discrimination that blacks faced, and thereby gained the public’s sympathy (Letter…Birm. Jail, 2). This method then required nonviolent action by blacks and also needed a violent white reaction to create the drama of good versus evil within media in order to create sympathy for blacks (Letter…Birm. Jail, 2). With this added media outrage they hoped to in turn get more legislation passed and enforced.
In this letter King proclaims that the laws of the government against blacks are intolerable and that civil disobedience should be used as a tool of freedom. King's audience also includes the U.S. citizens and the world. King disagrees with social injustice, but he is also trying to defend himself and his organization, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from the government that disagrees with his movement for civil disobedience. He also wants to change public policy and bring the civil rights movement to national attention in order to increase the likelihood that his actions will cause good outcomes. King speaks almost as a "holy" advisor because of the fact that he is a minister.
Centuries later the Negro community was still riddled by racial injustice and oppression. These contradictions to the original visions of the founding fathers were still very much in existence when Dr. King made his speech. A scholar who graduated and received a bachelor degree in sociology from Morehouse College, Martin Luther King’s speech, “I Have a Dream” was carefully crafted to encourage and motivate the predominantly Negro audience to take a stand for an equal democracy. “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off… Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.” King’s tone when he delivered his speech was derived from the cadence and rhythms of a preacher. His speech consisted of various literary elements such as figurative language and repetitive phrases that painted a vivid mural in the mind of the listener: “My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
One of the most important things to analyze is the speech objective. As a notable civil rights leader, King’s main objective was to motivate his followers, mainly civil rights activists. His objective was to motivate them to continue their strenuous civil rights work and motivate them to overcome the seemingly unchangeable conditions that they were dealing with. The primary message being delivered was that Blacks in America were not being treated fairly and that they were going to continue to push for justice until it was achieved. He gives examples, such as the fact that most Blacks in the Deep South were still not able to vote and that racial violence was still occurring throughout the Nation.
Summary of MLK speech This document will summarise the famous speech delivered by Martin Luther King, which he delivered on the 28th of August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. This speech has often been stylistically described as being a sermon, a work of poetry and a political treatise but will mainly be remember for the way in which it was emotionally delivered and the cause it served. Martin Luther King opens his speech by referring back to historical events and the human rights of the black population. He refers to the event as something which “will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom”. Martin Luther King continues by referencing the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln, stating that great historical figures had realised the need for human rights of all people to be respected, but that the “Negro still lives on the lonely island of poverty”.
“On Civil Disobedience” by Mohandas Gandhi, an excerpt from “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr., and an excerpt from “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau, all show how all three of them have similar views towards civil disobedience. Some people may believe that civil disobedience is not an effective way to attain change. However, they may not have realized that civil disobedience has helped many people achieve his or her goals, proving that civil disobedience is effective. For example, civil disobedience has helped African Americans gain certain rights and free them from racial injustice. In “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, King talks about how African Americans were treated differently due to the color of their skin.
In this essay I will be talking about the Black Power movement in the 1960’s and how they did not hinder the Black civil rights. I think this because the movement showed how far they were willing to go to fight in what they believe in, examples of this was buying themselves guns for self defence against police or increasing black morale to help fight. However I will also be talking in this essay what may have hindered the Black civil rights. To begin with a way in which the Black Power movement hindered the Black civil rights is that they mainly focused on violent protests which went against what NAACP, SNCC and CORE had been doing at the time as they were where focused on what Martin Luther King had been saying about peaceful protests and gaining peaceful protesters for example the protest method of sit-ins where people would going to public but separated places and sit wherever they want. So when the Black Power movement decided to start using violent protests like gun shootouts against the police for example ‘the battle of 28th Street’ where eight Black Panthers ambushed a group of police officers and began a shootout.
They could not stand for the discrimination and they were going fight for justice. The audience that came to hear the speech had the same goal as Dr. King. They want to fight for the Negros. Dr. King’s Talk Card effectively reach the goal he wanted to express. At the very beginning of the speech Dr. King said “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” His goal is to fight freedom for the Negro
He gave the speech "I Have a Dream" in 1963 on the "March to Washington" after which he established himself as one of the greatest orators in the history of America. He wrote this speech in order to inspire and convince the people of America that each and every American no matter what the color of their skin is or from where they belong, each and every one of them should be treated equally, with justice and equality. He wanted to stop the injustice that was taking place in each and every street of America and he wanted to inspire the African American people to start a non-violent protest against this wrong doing. For this speech, his target audience were all the American's present on that day in Washington and all the people of the country. His final purpose of the speech was to attain freedom for his fellow African American citizens who were being treated unfairly during that period in the country.