Ethos Pathos Logos In Letter From Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr. Wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” during 1963, in this time frame African Americans were fighting the rest of the population for civil rights. We can see this from the vocabulary MLK uses, like “Negro”, which was majority used when African Americans were not seen as equals. We can also see this through the context of the letter; that he wants freedom for African Americans. The purpose of the letter he wrote in jail, is to convince the clergyman that he and his "people" acted out because their actions were necessary at that time. When doing this, he used condemnatory and persuasive tones to try to persuade the reader to his point of view. Martin Luther King uses Logos, Pathos, and Ethos throughout his piece to provide his argument.

In the letter his rebuttal is “they" had no other options, except to prepare for direct action,” and, Dr. King has many logical pieces of proof to support his point. When proving his point he used several different strategies, one strategy he used is including historical evidence in his letters, like when he writes, "We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."(King 1963) He also used some logical fallacies, when he is appealing to the authority, like when he writes, “Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...”(King 1963) This is an appeal to authority because he is including a well respected name of someone famous, and saying that this well respected person agrees with him, so his idea must be correct. With the inclusion of some logical fallacies, and his letter containing many valid logos, his essay has a very logical standpoint . King uses plenty of these examples to ensure the reader understands his