Letter From Birmingham Jail Ethos Pathos Logos

Achieving Racial Equality

On April 12th, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was leading a peaceful protest in the city of Birmingham, Alabama that resulted in him being arrested and jailed. Later that day eight clergymen responded with the statement “A Call For Unity” in The Birmingham News requesting he ends all of his protests. A few days later, King created a response to the statement in the form of an open letter. In this letter Martin Luther King Jr. develops a well proposed argument in response to the eight clergymen who published the statement. Throughout the letter, King uses rhetorical appeal in order to give the viewer a sense of King’s credibility,his emotions, and also his logic on why he does what he does. King uses ethos by showing common interests, pathos by creating an emotional response to his viewers by justifying his unjust experiences, and logos by using logic from past events that happened in history.

In this letter, King maintains to establish his credibility using the rhetorical appeal of ethos. For example, in the opening paragraph of his letter King States “But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are

Ethos, pathos, and logos are used to make his argument adequate with each appeal adding a different way to look at his situation. They all add an unique touch of individuality to his argument. King establishes his credibility, evokes emotional response, and uses logic all to his advantage. King accomplishes the use of allowing the readers to understand his beliefs. The use of Aristotle’s appeals are what molds his entire letter/argument. As a reader of this letter, it opened me up to a different mindset on what Martin Luther King Jr had to go through to accomplish his goals by getting a sense of the hardships he went through to stand up for what he believes in. I personally believe King possesses the use of rhetorical appeals very