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Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis

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A Flight of Activism “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”. These were the wise words of the reputable, Benjamin Franklin. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to address the horrendous issue in not only Birmingham, but the United States as a whole as well. Throughout this letter, King exploits many different rhetorical devices such as imagery, while portraying a multitude rhetorical questions all through this letter, and to convey a sense of powerful diction through the duration of this mind altering letter. The imagery implemented during this letter generates a strong leadership sensation, and it also gives you a feel of how completely awful segregation …show more content…
“Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.”. (King). The vocabulary used in this quote give off a negative sense to the reader. The words ‘degrades’, ‘distort’, and ‘damages’ are all negative words used to intensify the negativity in the world at the time. Another quote with strong diction that is used by King is “The question is not whether we will be extremist. But what kind of extremist we will be. Will we be extremist for hate, or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice, or the extension of justice?”. (King). This quote uses the words ‘love’ and ‘hate’. These two words are complete opposites. Dr. King uses antithesis to compare his use of diction as complete opposites. He applies diction in this example to show that there is no love when it comes to blacks and whites being segregated. It is all hatred because the whites feel that they are better morally and they are more wealthy than blacks so they think that makes them more superior. The last quote I am going to use to convey diction in this letter is “I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.”.

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