Martin Luther King Rhetorical Analysis

From Martin Luther King's "Letters from Birmingham Jail."

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self- purification; and direct action. We have gone through all of these steps to Birmingham. There can be no gain saying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced the grossly unjust treatments in courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and the churches of Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard brutal facts of the case. On this basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought out to negotiate with the city fathers.But the latter consistently refused to engage in good- faith negotiation.

Pathos: Martin Luther King wanted to stress the fact that there was no need to ask for freedom by using violence and that he wanted to negotiate the situation with the city. He stated the Birmingham could probably be the most segregated city in the United States. I agree with what he was saying. It's a southern state and at that time African American citizens had no say to a White man. It was like a white person could do anything to a black man and get away with it but if a black man was to do something to a white person he would end up in jail or killed. Back then it was a major double standard for the two races and I feel that sometimes that is still happening today in modern society. Martin Luther King felt that this act and many others were acts of injustice and it was. He felt that we a should be treated equally and stand on the same mental, physical and possibly emotional level of everyone else.

Ethos: I feel that Martin Luther King used self- purification as a way to motivate everyone to change their minds about segregation. He stated that African Americans have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. I feel that this statement is true too. At that time everything was a double standard. They rather put a black man in jail for something he didn't do that put a white man in jail for a crime that he clearly committed. Shouldn't they feel bad about wrongly prosecuting some one for something they didn't do. Back then a black man wasn't a person. Even though slavery was abolished that's all a white man could see African Americans as. Simply using the words self- purification was just another way to me to say let African Americans be treated equally. We want to think of every race as our brothers and sisters and work together to build a better community.

Logos:Martin Luther King's logical approach was to call out for an negotiation. Regardless whether many people declined his plea he still worked and lived for a change. I think that was what he was trying to explain in his essay. Putting him in jail for a short period of time was not going to stop him in his fight for equality. He wanted the readers of this essay to see what was happening in Birmingham to African Americans. He wanted his readers to see that he didn't want harm to be brought on people. After all the things that white people has done to African Americans they still think of them as individuals so why cant they do the same. At least once a every hour millions of people are still saying the old statement treat people how you want to be treated and I think that is what Martin Luther King is trying to say when he calls out for a negotiation.