Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” encompasses the purpose behind the movement and reveals King as a strong rhetorician. Through his letter, King provides a detailed look into the racial inequality taking place in that time. King’s eloquent response to the clergymen dispels their criticisms and presents a strong argument for racial equality. Throughout the letter, King references different philosophers in order to establish himself as an intelligent and legitimate authority. Rather than basing his argument on his own experiences, King alludes to that of Socrates. By doing so, he presents himself as an educated man who is worthy of being compared to a great philosopher. King compares the clergymen condemning his actions to “condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act…”. This comparison highlights the knowledge King possesses of the history of Civil Disobedience, as well as Socrates part in it. Any educated person would not be willing to call Socrates an unintelligent man or speak against his actions. Therefore, by explaining his own actions in comparison to that of Socrates, King forces the readers to see his actions as logical. …show more content…
Since he is addressing clergymen, who obviously believe in God, King intertwines religion with his logical points. As religious men, they cannot logically disagree with King’s actions when they are very similar to Jesus’s. King employs this method because the clergymen cannot impose a counterargument when they are faced with their own religion. Furthermore, if the eight men were to disagree with King’s claims, they would seem like hypocrites for disagreeing with actions similar to those preached in church. While addressing each of the clergymen as a whole, he also offers them questions of his own. By doing so, King allows them to consider his own