Examples Of Martin Luther King Persuasive Appeal

What are rhetorical devices? How can they be used? Martin Luther King Jr. numerous rhetorical devices in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” writing to clergymen who wrote a public letter calling King’s actions “unwise and untimely” and telling him to “wait.” Despite Martin Luther King Jr. using many rhetorical devices in his letter, ethos and anaphora are the most powerful, for they increase credibility and create rhythm and urgency. MLK uses ethos by letting the readers (clergymen) understand his educational status and his role as a religious leader.

The time is now to “Let Freedom Ring!” Dr King, whom is an avid extremist, is an enormous advocate for civil rights. In his speech “I Have A Dream” and his news excerpt “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” With every political and religious piece of literature he’s published, there is always persuasion. The two i’m going to focus on are logos and pathos.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a civil rights leader who advocated for nonviolent confrontation of segregation, wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a response to the clergymen who interrogated his techniques of protest in “Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen”. The eight Alabama clergymen, who wanted to humiliate King in his efforts to peacefully demonstrate against discrimination, describe their concerns and cautions for the demonstrations controlled by an outsider, King, in the city of Birmingham. Although the clergymen state that they support King’s ultimate aims, they cannot accept the imprudent demonstrations. King, hoping to publicize and persuade the public to take action against segregation, cunningly refutes the clergymen’s concerns with the use of rhetorical strategies and devices to support his argument.

The 1960s was a time when skin color was crucial, hate was inevitable, and where actions and words were uniform. Although accused of being an outsider, Martin Luther King Jr. was able to demonstrate his strengths and powerful influence even while confined in the walls of the Birmingham jail. The racial issues were addressed through his compelling and impassioned letter in reply to the eight prominent Alabama clergymen. Even during a time of racial injustice, King was able to establish many rhetorical strategies throughout his piece, specifically throughout paragraphs 45-50. King demonstrated three essential aspects by establishing logos, utilizing diction, and syntax in order to portray the true message to the reader.

First, King appeals to his audience by using ethos which is an appeal to ethics by convincing everyone that they are worthy of being heard. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. writes, “I have the honor of

Dr. King successfully makes use of several rhetorical devices throughout this letter, none being more prevalent than that of logos. Dr. King’s arguments are exceedingly logical in their appeal. He clarifies all of the points for his arguments as well as providing supporting details for them as well. For example, in the beginning of his letter, Dr. King offers a direct response to the clergymen’s critical claims that these protest were “unwise” as well as “untimely”(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1) .Throughout

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address is considered one of the top best Inaugural Addresses for different reasons. For the reason of his Inaugural Address being one of the best is because he Achieves his purpose of getting people to Support him, He does this by using Rhetorical Appeals. During his Address, he uses a lot of those appeals, those appeals affect others in a different way. For example, some of the simple Appeals are Logos, Pathos, and Ethos, Logos give the reader Information and Evidence about the Topic, Pathos tries to Evoke an emotion to the reader, And Ethos is an appeal to ethics it gives credibility to the persuader or author of the passage. But in his address, we see more than just those 3 Appeals, we also see some Rhetorical

1. Ethos, Logos, and Pathos are important aspects in Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. The meaning behind Ethos is to appeal to ethics, which means convincing readers of the author’s credibility, meanwhile Pathos is an appeal to emotion, and is used in literature to convince readers of an argument by getting their emotions involved. Last but not least, Logos is the appeal to logic and is used to persuade readers using a force of reason. These terms are important in MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail because the foundation of the letter is built upon ideas of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

He uses some of the best writing techniques to engage his audience in the best ways. KIng used Ethos (ethics), Pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). With the help of these three modes of rhetoric. King created a speech that changed the world as we knew it. King speech changed lives and views of African Americans as a whole.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an important figure in gaining civil rights throughout the 1960’s and he’s very deserving of that title as seen in both his “I Have a Dream” speech and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” letter. In both of these writings Dr. King uses logos - logical persuasion - and pathos - emotional appeal - to change the opinions of people who were for segregation and against civil rights. Although King was arrested for a nonviolent protest, he still found a way to justify his actions with the use of logos and pathos. MLK uses both ways to gain the attention and agreement of the audience but, he uses pathos not just more, but in a more relatable way in order to appeal to his audience.

Dr. Kings “I Have a Dream” speech shows powerful examples of logos and pathos. His effectiveness relies heavily on his usage of these two ways to explain the pain and suffering of segregation. By him capturing his true life’s reality through pity and credible sources allows him to become successful in attempting to end the racism crisis. King states that, “when our republic was writing the Declaration of Independence, they were making a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable rights’ of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Logos is the prime example of King using this event of writing the Declaration of Independence.

Martin Luther King Jr. uses both logical and emotional appeals in order for all his listeners’ to be able to relate and contemplate his speeches. He does an exceptional job using both these appeals throughout his speeches by backing up his emotional appeals with logical ones. Using emotional appeals captures an audience's attention and makes them think about what the narrator is saying. Emotional appeal uses intense words and charged language to grab listeners to get them to keep listening. On the other hand, logical appeals helps to grasp the concept better and provides facts that prove it to be true.

In Martin Luther King’s Jr, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” the letter was a persuasive attempt to get Americans to finally see the inequality in the United States of America. Throughout King’s letter, he used various ways of persuasive strategies: pathos, logos, and ethos. But the strongest influential device King used was pathos. Now the word “strongest” has various meanings, but in this instance, it means the most successful.

To achieve this, he used rhetorical strategies such as appeal to pathos and repetition. His passionate tone flowed through these strategies, increasing their persuasive power on the people and encouraging them to follow/listen to his message on racial injustice. While pathos elicits an emotional response from the audience to make them more accepting of King’s ideas, repetition structures the speech and emphasizes key ideas for the audience to take away from listening. These two techniques played a crucial role in furthering his purpose and in provoking a powerful response from the audience that made this speech memorable and awe-inspiring. To this day, King’s speech remains one of the most famous and influential speeches in

During the era of the civil rights movements in the 60s, among the segregation, racism, and injustice against the blacks, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial to deliver one of the greatest public speeches for freedom in that decade. In Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech he effectively uses ethos, diction and powerful metaphors to express the brutality endured by African American people. Yet his most important method of reaching his audience, and conveying his enduring message of equality and freedom for the whole nation was his appeal to pathos. With these devices, King was able to move thousands of hearts and inspire the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Opening his speech Martin Luther King Jr. sets up his credibility with his use of ethos, referring to the Declaration of Independence saying, “This note was a promise that all men… would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life.”