Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail By Martin Luther King

As a devoted man of god, King was a peaceable person, he wanted to end segregation and other acts of racism in a nonviolent way. His plan of action had four steps, injustice, negotiation, self -purification and direct action. For each step he

Nonviolent resistance is one strategy that can be used in any movement or retaliation. In the 1960s, one man, named Martin Luther King, Jr. very much supported that idea. In his letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King writes back to the eight clergymen as a response to their criticism towards his nonviolent movement and actions. Throughout his letter, King discusses how necessary his movement is, especially by using credibility, emotion, reasoning and various figurative language, and the effectiveness it can have towards social reform. Although all that content contained in the essay proved to be valuable to his argument, King’s three concluding paragraphs appeared to be more effectual because of how he ends the letter with a satirical

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King Jr responds to his fellow clergymen criticism by arguing that all people have a moral obligation to fight injustice. He educates people about the racial tension and injustice in Birmingham to show that racism has influenced the rest of the United States. King also differentiates between just and unjust laws in order to justify civil disobedience and having to break the state’s law when necessary. He states that African Americans can no longer wait for justice but they must band together to argue for their rights in nonviolent way. King writes this letter to defend civil disobedience so that the racial injustice that African Americans have been enduring can come to an end.

Starting in the mid-1950s and continuing on into the late 1960s African-Americans aimed to outlaw racial discrimination. On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter from his jail cell in Birmingham jail. As an African American, activist, and public speaker he challenged the laws, politics, and oppression of black people using many persuasive techniques to touch the hearts of his readers. Martin Luther King Jr. starts off his letter by justifying his follower’s nonviolent direct actions. King Jr. describes his right to be there and how he was “compelled to carry gospel of freedom beyond [his] own home town.”

Dr.King wanted all African Americans to be treated equally, he wanted freedom for his brothers and sisters. He urged people to stand up and push for freedom in a nonviolent way but the road to freedom was not easy. You had to be willing to lay down your life even if it meant you could end up dead, he states “Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry policemen...” (King 274) Dr. King describes the experiences of what they had to endure, these are the experiences the people who joined him had to face.

King goes on to say that he was stuck in between Negroes that opposed his nonviolent marches and Negroes that have no say in equality for colored Americans. He says, “If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march”.

In that letter, he wrote a phrase that was “non-violent direct action” (King, 1963). King meant that he did not believe in violent, but an action (e.g. negotiation) would resolve his people racial rights. I think he used it as a strategy to be heard because he was talking in the representation of his community. He pointed that there is more than “340 years”, and they were still waiting for the justice of their rights.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to his fellow clergymen and supporters as “A Call for Unity” as he sat in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama. King had been placed under arrest due to participating in a peaceful march against segregation on property that he did not have permission to be on. During this time, in the 1960’s, the Southern part of the United States was ruled under the Jim Crow Laws which enforced legal segregation throughout the region. By using techniques such as self-presentation, emotional appeal and rational appeal, King is able to defend his non-violent strategy and resistance to the oppression and racism by declaring that people have the moral responsibility to break unjust laws in a peaceful manner. Using the rhetorical appeal

Pointing out multiple of MLK’s strategies did not work he explains, one in particular, “ It’s not good to refer to what you’re going to do as a sit-in. That right there castrates you. Right there it brings you down”. Following that statement he says, “ Well, you and I have been sitting long enough and it's time for us today to start doing some standing and some fighting to that up”. The next major effort for equality that African American participated in was the “March on Washington”.

King’s steps is negotiation, a stage of discussion where they peacefully make a request. Their goal was to start a productive dialogue between the opposing sides that would hopefully yield a strong result. Dr. King began negotiations with Lyndon B. Johnson in hopes of convincing him to pass the Voting Rights Act, following the order of their four step process. This negotiation was unsuccessful at first, as Lyndon B. Johnson decided that it was not the right time to make this decision, which forced Dr. King to carry on to the next step of direct action. In Selma, protestors were able to have discussions and make statements that encouraged reconsideration of the racist system that was created to prevent black people from voting.

Nonetheless, these laws did not solve the problems facing African Americans; they did not eliminate racism or poverty and they did not improve the conditions in many black urban neighborhoods. In addition to the subject, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a miraculous social activist, led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s up until 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the south and other areas of the nation, as well as the creation of the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965. In spite of his sorrowful assassination in April 1968, at the time I felt as if Martin Luther King Jr. had done his duty in life. For instance, he had reformed the world forever with his remarkable “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.

During the duration of his time at a Birmingham jail, Dr. King strategically enlightened his fellow clergymen of the qualities that make a situation unjust. He states that “in any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustice exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action.” Using these four steps, he provides a clear outline to prove that there is a plague of racial injustice in the city of Birmingham. Because of the racial injustice inflicted upon the black community, Dr. King, being an unshakable figurehead, takes it upon himself to provoke direct action to bring a resolution to these problems. Dr. King believed to create effect change, “we must meet the needs for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism.”

With the help of these four steps, he justifies the need for the demonstration. King illustrates the city of Birmingham as “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States,” (King 2). Here King is able to show that injustices are present in Birmingham, which further justifies his reason for a peaceful demonstration. King proceeds to speak about his method of protesting. He states that negotiation was not met, and that “[their] hopes had been blasted,” that like “victims of a broken promise,” their wishes had been disregarded, (King 2).

King believed that if he could just go to Birmingham, and protest non-violently, that he could make a difference. On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned, in Birmingham, for protesting the civil rights of Black Americans. While in jail, he began writing a letter addressing the clergymen. His main audience in writing this letter was to the eight clergymen who criticized his actions and also the majority of the population as well. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, argues that injustice

During his speech, King emphasizes his point by speaking at a slow rate, while using appropriate vocabulary to describe the problem and his solutions; the problem being that “the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (AmericanRhetoric, par 3, 2023) and to solve the lack of equality, “we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence” (AmericanRhetoric, par 8, 2023). Although King spoke the truth of inequality in America by underlining the negatives of participating in the protest, that people will get hurt and blamed for wrongful deeds, he failed to provide additional information on the successfulness of the protest. Although the movement was a pyrrhic victory, King should have implemented a better plan and focused on his ideas of the movement rather than telling the audience to follow faith. If King were to speak more about the civil rights movement, he could have gained more supporters, especially White Americans; White Americans did not join the movement because many were afraid to face the same discrimination faced by African