Analysis Of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From A Birmingham Jail

Franklin D. Roosevelt once stated that, “In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice…, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man”. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. did just that, and in his efforts to protest the unfair treatment and racial prejudice against African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, he was arrested and jailed for opposing the courts orders against public non-violent demonstration. While in jail, he composed his famous “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” in which Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the white American political community and American society as a whole as he explained his thought process behind the protests and his justification for these peaceful demonstrations. His letter was well structured and articulated, focusing primarily on why his decisions were not “untimely” as he states, “I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was "well timed" according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation” (King 158). He deplores the white community leaders for criticizing his peaceful act of defiance because they were originally too stubborn to negotiate with him. To make it known why he could not wait any longer for social reform, King draws primarily on ethos to show justify his cause and pathos to ensure that his audience is fully aware of the suffering of the African American community through his poignant examples of everyday racial injustice and oppression exercised by white American society. One of King’s main points in which he attempts to justify in his letter was his reasoning for visiting Birmingham in the first place and his validation for the importance of the protests to society. Many people criticized King as being an “outsider coming in” to a place he does not belong or was not welcome. He stated, appealing with ethos, that he has “…the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference” and “I am here because I have basic organizational ties here…and because injustice is here” (King 154). He proceeds to give details about his organization and its purpose, which is to use the gospel to promote human rights for all, especially African Americans. He continues, appealing emotionally through religion, relating his cause to that of the biblical prophets who “left their little villages and carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns” (King 155). He made it clear that there was a problem in Birmingham and that he would not stand by and witness his brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ being mistreated, and therefore he too was “compelled to carry the gospel of …show more content…
Instead, he initiated his basic four-step plan which he used to mitigate the risk of societal conflict which was “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action” (King 155). His organization followed the plan step by step but the political leaders “consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation” (King 156) to settle the matter. King knew that in order for there to be progress, there would need to be a protest so they could “create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood” (King