Gary Selby's Exodus Summary

Improved Essays
Show More
Gary Selby shows how Martin Luther King, Jr. used the biblical story of Exodus to motivate African Americans in their struggle for freedom from racial oppression. Through analysis of King's major speeches, Selby illuminates the ways in which King drew from the Exodus narrative to offer his listeners a structure that explained their present circumstances, urged united action, and provided the conviction that they would succeed. This book also explains how King constructed a symbolic framework for interpreting the setbacks of the Civil Rights movement, even as he challenged them to remain faithful to the cause.

This book provides the reader with discoveries that make its point come alive with a unique perspective about how rhetorical subjects

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Summary Of James Gregory's American Exodus
    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Summary Of James Gregory's American Exodus

    James Gregory’s, American Exodus, is a book that focuses on Dust Bowl migration to California, and their economic and social struggles in California. The book first starts off setting up the historical context of the Dust Bowl and the migrants with statistics, maps, pictures, and migrant backgrounds in the introduction. The overall book reads like a history textbook on the Dust Bowl, which is divided into two parts instead of narrative based on one family like The Grapes of Wrath. The first part of the book is organized chronologically, focusing on the resettlement of the Dust Bowlers, and the second part is done thematically and focuses on Okie culture. Gregory’s approach successfully showed the clash of cultures and social struggles the migrants faced in California accurately without having to caricaturize the migrants.…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Where Do We Go From Here
    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Where Do We Go From Here

    “Where Do We Go From Here?” is a speech delivered by Martin Luther King in 1967 during the Southern Christian Leadership Council in Georgia. The year 1967 was a period in American history where the civil rights movement and Black Power was a reigning notion amongst the public – causing boycotts and riots across the country, eventually spreading to other continents. In the shown extract, King is perceived to highlight two main ideas to the audience. First, he asks for a social change of the order of American society for the equality of all humans regardless of race and gender – and second, for the freedom and perseverance of the civil rights movement. While King draws to the points of rioter’s belief, he concurrently establishes a vivid contrast…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail
    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

    How would you feel if, every day, you had to experience the injustice of being deemed less of a person based on the color of your skin? The year is 1963 before the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech swept the nation off their feet; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is sitting in a jail cell writing a letter in response to “A Call for Unity.” King has landed himself in jail for marching at a peaceful protest in Birmingham, Alabama that he attended at the request of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. At the time, the Civil Rights movement is in full swing and both blacks and whites are standing up for a change and demanding an end to racial segregation. An analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” reveals, the appeals known as ethos, pathos, and logos help support and persuade racial equality and to explain his actions in…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis
    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis

    “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: King’s Stand Against Social Injustice In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of biblical references served its purpose in making the clergymen realize the injustice they were really exhibiting. They may have claimed that King and his protestors were actually doing the morally wrong thing in their nonviolent protest that, according to them, instigated violence, but they were simply turning a blind eye from the truth of their actions. Since the receivers of King’s letter, as well as King himself, were all ministers, he frequently references biblical characters and stories because of how deeply rooted the Bible is in their professions and much of an impact it makes in driving the main point. One of the first things King addresses is how he was not as unwanted and undeserving of being in Birmingham as the eight clergymen had originally…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Ethos Pathos Logos In Letter From Birmingham Jail
    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Ethos Pathos Logos In Letter From Birmingham Jail

    In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King addresses many controversial issues that were a problem during his time and that continue to be an issue in our lives today. A few examples of these issues being police brutality, racism, and discrimination of races. Even after about 53 years, White and African Americans continue to bicker over racial issues. The issue that this essay will focus on is the withholding of African American freedom as well as discrimination and racism which are shown through the use of pathos, logos, and imagery. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” implying that those in power, would never give up…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    At The Dark End Of The Street Summary
    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages

    At The Dark End Of The Street Summary

    Many people see the words “Civil Rights Movement” and automatically think of the bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Ku Klux Klan. However, the movement was much more than that. In the book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire, the author shows us some of what was happening in the lesser known parts of the movement focusing on how sexual violence against both women and men played a big part in the Civil Rights Movement. The book starts at nearly the beginning of the movement (1940s) and spans throughout the whole movement, seeming to mainly focus on the rape case of one Recy Taylor in 1944, as the book begins and ends with the story of Mrs. Taylor.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Letter From Birmingham Jail: Primary Source Analysis Of Martin Luther King Jr.
    • 1001 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Letter From Birmingham Jail: Primary Source Analysis Of Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Primary Source Analysis Martin Luther King, Jr. seldom had time to answer his critics. But on April 16, 1963, he was confined to the Birmingham jail, imprisoned for participating in civil rights demonstrations. “Alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell,” King pondered a letter titled A Call for Unity that fellow clergymen had published pressing him to drop his crusade of nonviolent resistance and to leave the battle for racial equality to the courts. Within that document, King’s fellow clergymen caste him as an ‘outsider’ and ‘extremist’ interfering with life in the City of Birmingham.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Examples Of Justice In Antigone
    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Examples Of Justice In Antigone

    Justice doesn’t come easy to anyone who wants it. For justice to be given, it means a lot of patience and sacrifice. In the ancient Greek story Antigone by Sophocles, Antigone is a strong, young woman who does not abide to ruler Creon’s decision to refuse her brother, Polyneices, a proper burial. The Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. discusses M.L.K.’s desire to end segregation and racial injustice in America for the good of the people. Although these two bold characters differ in their ways of gaining justice, both Antigone and Martin Luther King Jr. neglect laws that they believe to be unjust, regardless of the negative results that follow.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Charles Marsh's The Beloved Community
    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Charles Marsh's The Beloved Community

    In The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today, Charles Marsh argues that the driving and sustaining force of the Civil Rights Movement and its successors was the Christian faith of its leaders. Throughout the novel, Marsh continuously shows how the Christian faith motivated and sustained leaders and everyday people; they were risking their lives, their family, and their job in hopes of the type of future that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached on. The Beloved Community tells hopeful and inauspicious stories within the larger history of social justice. Marsh makes clear that this history is still being written by those who take the teaching of Jesus in earnest doctrine. Hope, he claims, is…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail
    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, argued to his equality supporting peers that non-violent and instigative protests, while not as dignified as court battles, were fundamentally more potent and provocative. King successfully produced an appealing and effective message by integrating pathos and logos, utilizing faith based ethos, suitable literary devices, and a unique subtle tone that allowed him to maintain even-tempered and reasonable appeal in subject he was passionate and infuriated about. King wins the credibility of his peers by, firstly establishing they are his peers. He reminds them of his position as a reverend by citing the Alabama clergymen as “fellow clergymen”. Referring to his position as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and his invitation not Birmingham, he further established credibility by highlighting he is not merely a reverend creating social upheaval but a revered civic and religious leader whose presence is desired by the people of the city.…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Why We Can T Wait Martin Luther King Analysis
    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Why We Can T Wait Martin Luther King Analysis

    In the introduction to his book, Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King, Jr., a civil rights activist and minister, explains to all Americans why blacks can no longer put off the fight for their civil rights. He uses a narrative structure to achieve this purpose, setting two black children in opposite ends of the country in similar circumstances. Employing imagery, King explains the lack of opportunity and poverty of these children, representative of all African Americans. Additionally, he uses these children to describe the impact of black people in building America, contrasting it with the injustices they are facing. King concludes with a strong call for action, with hopes to further mobilize Americans in the Civil Rights Movement.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Martin Luther King And Frederick Douglasss Compare And Contrast Essay
    • 1923 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Martin Luther King And Frederick Douglasss Compare And Contrast Essay

    Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass are two African American activists who lived in different centuries. The former fought for African American civil rights in 20th century while the later strived for abolition of slavery in 19th century, but they both carried one single agenda or goal in common –fighting for the equality and integration of African-Americans. In the Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Narrative of an African American Slave, Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass have similarities and differences in their views of Christianity’s role in the larger context. For example, both Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass expressed their indignation and criticism towards the white Christian churches for their justification and permission of slavery and segregation, although the tone or the severity of such condemnation differs. Moreover, King also holds more optimism towards the role of Christianity in overcoming the legacies of slavery and segregation and takes a more progressive stance on such matter.…

    • 1923 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Martin Luther King Speech Analysis
    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Martin Luther King Speech Analysis

    Throughout the movement King and others earned themselves and African Americans the right of freedom of speech. Throughout King’s work, “I Have a Dream” speech and “Letter From Birmingham Jail” he shares logic to show information with his audience,…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter To Birmingham
    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter To Birmingham

    On April 12, 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrest, for trying to bring unity to the city of Birmingham. That same day eight clergymen wrote a letter announcing to the community about the realistic approach to racial problems. “When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiation among local leaders, and not on the streets” (p. 7) Understanding that Dr. King is an “outsider” and “that these demonstrations are “unwise” and “untimely.” Judgement about his letter that not all laws are good. Race, justice and moderation is what Dr. King writes in his letter.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More

Related Topics

Ready To Get Started?
Discover
Company
Follow
©2024 Cram.com
Privacy Policy |  About Ads |  Site Map |  Advertise  | 
  • Cookie Settings