Letter To Alabama Research Paper

Improved Essays
To My Dearest Nika-san,

It’s March 27, 1965, and as I walk through the muddy fields of Hayneville, Alabama, I stop to look at the sky and wonder what we blacks have been through. The day before we left for the march with Dr. King (Martin Luther King Jr.), I have done a lot of preparations and packed a very small amount of items needed before I left for the march. (I have packed a blanket and purse filled with my special needs) Ma and Pa were worried about my health but I told I’d be just fine. As I walk more into the muddy fields, my legs get very heavy and tired making me want to stop and rest.
Many of us have been walking for quite awhile, and so we plan to be walking to Montgomery for about 5 days. The other day when we started to march downtown near the white stores, I felt many people staring at me, specifically whites, but I still kept my head up high. Dr. King plans for all of us to meet up at the white people’s courthouse in Montgomery to fight for our rights. Once we got there, we stood there and stood on our knees. When old man Banks couldn’t bend, one of the majors beat him down and Dr. King just stood there doing nothing. I was afraid that this would happen and his family were trying to keep down their genes but Banks’ eldest son shouted back at the major where Mrs. Banks had the decision to hit the white man. That's where we got
…show more content…
have joined us on our march and from that point on, we have actually been happy to be doing the march. The first march that we did going to on Edmundo Bridge was really painful and devastating to all of us blacks. That’s where Mrs. Banks got almost really beaten up by the white majors and police army. We all got injured that day and none of us couldn’t stand the fact that those white police army people would poison us. Once the gunshots fired up all of us ran back to our hometown. As we were fleeting away, the strongest people got hurt pretty badly once we got

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the two great pieces of literature by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” and “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, he uses both logical and emotional appeal and executes them brilliantly. Although they are both strong points used by Dr. King he has a greater strength in using emotional appeal, or pathos, than logical appeal, or logos. As he refers to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Alabama Christian Movement for human rights there are some potent arguments about how the African Americans should be treated in their own countries, but it doesn’t get the feeling that you do with the metaphors, antithesis and rhetorical questions of emotional appeal in either story.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Martin Luther King Jr. encountered a different opposition, which involved changing the entire country’s views. King peacefully protests racial oppression and segregation in the United States to assist a whole country rather than a single individual. He observes civil disobedience as a way of protest on unjust laws of the country, rather than protesting a law regarding a singular person’s unfair treatment. King backs his approach on civil disobedience by illustrating his four steps, which are “the collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action” (King, 1). With every one of his beliefs and acts, King defends himself by indicating how unjust the laws have treated the African Americans of the nation.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He includes the steps for nonviolent campaigning, and then goes on to say that all of the steps have been taken and that the clergymen’s suggestion for negotiating circumstances were attempted, but botched on the white community’s part. This shows the Negroes’ willingness to cooperate with the white leadership on the part of fighting for desegregation, but that mainly the white leadership has not been cooperative. King also forces the clergymen to look at the causes of the demonstrations instead of just the effects. He even tells them, “I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at the effects, and does not grapple with underlying causes” (465).…

    • 1875 Words
    • 8 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    In the summer of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream” speech. He dreamed for a nation. He dreamed that America “would rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.” America, however, never reached that “sunlit path of racial justice.” And the American legal system is where many of the racial injustices still perpetuate.…

    • 1320 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” King responds to the criticism written by a group of clergymen about the work that King is pursuing in Birmingham. Although King directly addresses his fellow clergymen he also expresses his strong disappointment in the white churches of the south and the wide range of white moderates. Making it clear that these groups are not in favor of king and the work that he is doing, King explains the flaws of how those who fight against him are not solely fighting against their own brothers and sisters, but are also damaging themselves. Kings followers are the many oppressed people in the black community in need of secured civil rights, as well as select individuals of white churches, businesses,…

    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The essay “the Destruction of Culture” by Chris Hedges proved to be a cue for my ignorance. The stories of our countries past world endeavors was exposed for it’s likely existence: fiction. I always thought that everything we were taught was one hundred percent truth, set-in-stone. Why would we ever be taught something inaccurate? Education is education, I said.…

    • 735 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Dr. King’s process in taking nonviolent action is in four steps: collecting facts to determine where the injustice is present; negotiation; self-purification; then direct action. The steps already have been taken and he implies racial injustice covers the community. The Negro community has waited for their justice, for a while actually. The word “Wait!” became “Never!”, as they have waited almost 340 years for their justice. There are two types of laws, just and unjust laws.…

    • 1316 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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
  • Improved Essays

    Whether we realize it or not, every time we argue a point, we use one or more of the Aristotelian persuasion methods, which are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. The Ethos method uses credibility and trust, the Pathos method targets emotion, and the Logos method appeals to logic. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, which was a response to a letter from Birmingham clergymen, he needed a way to convince the clergymen that what he was doing was justified, and that his ideas were sensible. King used all three types of Aristotelian methods of persuasion in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” in order to convince the clergymen to agree with his ideas of nonviolence and integration. It is most likely that the Ethos…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When King appeals to emotion he wants you to understand how colored people were treated. If you’re not a Negro or colored person you don’t know the struggles they go through on a daily basis just because of the color of their skin. Also, colored people keep getting told to “wait,” but nothing is happening, nothing is changing, everything is staying the same: “...when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy”…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Letter from a Birmingham Jail Analysis Essay In this letter, King uses various tones to respond to a group of white clergymen who argue that his way of fighting social injustice is improper and to justify his means to try to achieve his purpose. King is a true civil rights activist and believes in only acting respectfully and nonviolently, but at the same time, the white clergymen, advocates of civil rights, condemn his nonviolent protest. King is “not unmindful of the difficulties involved” so he and his fellow activists have “decided to go through a process of self-purification” to be able to “accept blows” and to endure the “ordeals of jail” (King 1, 2). King uses his calm, explanatory tone to establish his creditability to his critics.…

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What is the language? The language is a most powerful weapon that we can used for to create a great impact on others; moreover, it could be influenced over and over the time. In “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell stated that language is a reflection of our culture and society. On the contrary, in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr. shows his belief about the segregation and tried to bring his community up to against the unjust law. In the both texts, George Orwell and Martin Luther King, Jr. both shows that political leaders use the language to empower the individuals in society by making an encouragement to bring them together and convince them to believe as his or her belief.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Allusion is very adequate because it concedes the audience to build reciprocity in their consciousness. The reason he does this is to state openly the injustices history had through time and how it is repeating again, like when he mentioned Birmingham and its fraudulent laws. He displays satire of Birmingham and braces the debate of honorable and dishonorable law: “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”. King is not frightened for saying the truth.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham jail was a detailed letter explaining the motives and emotion behind the non-violent protests that took place in the South. As a result of these protests, a few white religious leaders criticized the actions of Dr. King and those encouraging the non-violent campaigns. The purpose of this letter was to respond to criticism made by these leaders. In the letter Dr. King expounded on four of the leaders’ comments. He responded to the comments regarding the untimeliness of the campaigns, the willingness of the campaigners to break laws, the allegation that the campaigns triggered violence, and the description of the campaigns as extreme.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Utilization of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King Jr. composed “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to clarify why he began the civil disobedience. Dr. King legitimizes what he is doing and decries the leaders for not effectively taking part on the civil rights. He made it clear that the oppressed can remain oppressed forever and the time to take a stand is now. Dr. King’s letter is confirmation that shows how merciless the African Americans were dealt with and how change is essential.…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays