Martin Luther King Junior, a civil rights activist and public speaker, in his 1963 letter from the Birmingham jail, King justifies the protests and claims that immediate action should be taken in order to support the civil rights movement. King develops this justification and claim through establishing credibility, building a logical argument, and appealing to emotion through imagery.
King begins by establishing credibility with his opening line. He places himself on the levels of the clergymen by saying, “My dear fellow clergymen…” which indicates they are not any better than him. He continues on to state that he is not there because he experienced white privilege but because he is educated on the situation. He continues to build his credibility …show more content…
Building off the strategy he used to begin, he repeats himself many times and gives examples of what has happened in the past to provide situations that could happen in the future. He raises doubts about the meaning of “just law” and uses examples of when laws were unfair or biased. For example King states, “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws.” This part of his letter makes the clergymen think deeper and on a more personal level shaping his argument logically. He is comparing what the Hitler did to the Jewish to what the whites are doing to the African Americans in the US. By doing so he makes the clergymen think harder and harder. This aids to the development of his claim by building is argument with logical tactics and
King begins by establishing credibility with his opening line. He places himself on the levels of the clergymen by saying, “My dear fellow clergymen…” which indicates they are not any better than him. He continues on to state that he is not there because he experienced white privilege but because he is educated on the situation. He continues to build his credibility …show more content…
Building off the strategy he used to begin, he repeats himself many times and gives examples of what has happened in the past to provide situations that could happen in the future. He raises doubts about the meaning of “just law” and uses examples of when laws were unfair or biased. For example King states, “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws.” This part of his letter makes the clergymen think deeper and on a more personal level shaping his argument logically. He is comparing what the Hitler did to the Jewish to what the whites are doing to the African Americans in the US. By doing so he makes the clergymen think harder and harder. This aids to the development of his claim by building is argument with logical tactics and