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Dr martin luther king jr's letter from the birmingham jail
Interpreting Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Interpreting Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
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In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation …show more content…
When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated. Selected Bibliography Adams, Russell, Great Negroes Past and Present, pp. 106-107. Chicago, Afro-Am Publishing Co., 1963. Bennett, Lerone, Jr., What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Chicago, Johnson, 1964. I Have a Dream: The Story of Martin Luther King in Text and Pictures. New York, Time Life Books, 1968. King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Measure of a Man. Philadelphia. The Christian Education Press, 1959. Two devotional addresses. King, Martin Luther, Jr., Strength to Love. New York, Harper & Row, 1963. Sixteen sermons and one essay entitled "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence." King, Martin Luther, Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York, Harper, 1958. King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience. New York, Harper & Row, 1968. King, Martin Luther, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? New York, Harper & Row,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested on April 12, 1963, in Birmingham, for having a protest without a proper permit. On the exact day King was arrested, eight clergymen from Alabama wrote a letter called “A Call for Unity.” The letter called for termination of civil activities and demonstrations and designated King an “outsider” and saying that outsiders were the problems in Birmingham and not the blacks that are from there. On April 16 King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which was his responds to his fellow clergymen. He wrote the letter as a means to convince the clergymen and the white moderate that the nonviolent demonstrations that had got him arrested, were a necessity and to enlighten them on why the segregation laws in the southern states needed to be changed. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King uses logos, pathos, and ethos to persuade the clergymen and convince them in assisting him in putting an end to segregation laws of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama.
Martin Luther King Jr., is one of the most recognized, if not the greatest civil rights activist in this century. He has written papers and given speeches on the civil rights movement, but one piece stands out as one of his best writings. “Letter from Birmingham” was an intriguing letter written by King in jail in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. He was responding to a letter written by eight Alabama Clergyman that was published in a Birmingham Alabama newspaper in 1963 regarding the demonstrations that were occurring to stop segregation. The intended audience for this letter was of course the eight clergymen, but he also had a wider audience in mind because instead of sending each individual man a letter he had it published in the local newspaper.
Lischer, Richard The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the word that moved America Oxford University Press: 1995. Print
King, Martin L. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]." Letter to Fellow Clergymen. 16
Martin Luther King, Jr., born on January 15, 1929, was well known for his nonviolent movement to bring justice and to an end to the segregation of the people in the United States back in the 1950s. With King being the leader of a peaceful protest, it failed to bring equally to the colored people. Martin Luther King, Jr. was labeled as an “outsider” who was “hatred and violence” and that his actions were “unwise and untimely” from the Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen (clergymen). In response, on the day of April 16, 1963, he wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail to declare and defense his movement was not “unwise and untimely” at all. To analyze his points, King used the powerful literary devices of pathos- use of an emotional appeal.ethos-
King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter From A Birmingham Jail." Letter to The Clergymen. 16 Apr. 1963. American Identities. N.p.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. N. pag. Print
Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther. New York. Abington Printing Press. 1950
King, Martin Luther. "I Have A Dream." The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 8th edition, Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 309-312.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pastor, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Mr. King was a man of honor and respect, even in the troubling situations of serving jail time. People who were supposed to support him questioned his actions, but Dr. King still stood by what he believed in. In Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. King hoped that the white religious leaders would come to his aid but instead found reluctance and opposition. In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr. refutes his critics claims through the use of passionate tones, metaphors, and allusions.
King, Martin L., Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Letter to My Dear Fellow Clergymen. 16 Apr. 1963. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
King, Martin Luther Jr. “Letter from the Birmingham jail.” Why We Can't Wait 1963: 77-100.
In the early part of 1968 he was interested in producing another civil rights march for the poor. Before that could happen, the sanitation workers of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, summoned him. He arrived in March in ord... ... middle of paper ... ...
...s speech made an immense impact on the injustices of segregation and discrimination against people.
Over the course of his life, Dr. King would lead and participate in multiple non-violent protests against segregation. On the first of December, 1955, the arrest of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama would trigger the first of many protests led by King. The Montgomery bus boycott would last for 385 days and was so tense that King’s house was bombed. He was later arrested and released after the United States District Courts ruled that segregation on all Montgomery public buses was illegal. This paved the way for King to lead many more protests in his life and becoming a major leader in the desegregation movement.
proved to be extremely helpful in aiding my understanding of King’s speech. Although not any one of the books were all-encompassing, they provided vital information that made my research more efficient. In my opinion, The Dream, by Drew D. Hansen, proved to be the strongest of the compositions because it provided information that was overlooked in my other selections. This work detailed the events before, during, and after his “I Have a Dream” speech. At the same time, it also dove into the important aspects of his philosophies which later became the driving force of his March on Washington. Moreover, this book provided graphics that compared the written notes of King’s sermons and speeches to the dialogue that was actually given. Correspondingly, it used the same technique to explain and organize his metaphorical references. In contrast, I found that “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.” was the weakest of the three books. Since this book sheds light on King’s entire life, the “I Have a Dream” portion was somewhat short and undetailed compared to the other selections. Also, due to the lack of a third person analysis, it seemed one dimensional and monotonous. As a result of these issues, I was less interested in quoting the material and more concerned with obtaining an understanding of King’s thought