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Letter from birmingham jail short summary
Critique of letter from birmingham jail
Summary of civil disobedience by Thoreau
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Thoreau and MLK use many similar strategies in their writings. One uses these strategies to make their piece more effective, in my observations of the two writing I come to realize MLK's persuasive letter, Letter from Birmingham Jail was far more effective than Thoreau’s Lecture On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, and here is why. MLK’s article was more effective because he strives towards tugging on the audience's heartstrings rather than the logical side, his repetition was used more effective, and he refers back to his audience. Also, because MLK stayed more on topic and was more passionate about his piece, made his writing a more effective disquisition. MLK uses pathos in his piece ,for starters, while Thoreau uses more of a logical side …show more content…
First MLK tells the clergyman straight up that he disagrees, stating “Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.”” He then proceeds to tell them why they are wrong while almost poking at them for a reaction saying “I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes.” King also uses their religion and calls them out, proving them wrong with examples of their own religion as he first says “In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion?” and moves on through repetitions of questions starting with “isn’t this” too eventually bring up their religion when he states “Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of
Though Henry David Thoreau lived more than one hundred years before the time of Martin Luther King Jr., his philosophy lingered in the minds of many individuals. Thoreau was opposed to injustice in general and refused to support or to follow the unjust laws. His idealism and anarchism influenced the thinking of King. Douglass' narrative shows how his thinking would have been similar to that of Thoreau's.
The idea of challenging an unreasonable law is central to both King, Jr.'s and Thoreau's plights, though each have very distinct characteristics unique to themselves. In King, Jr.'s case, he saw segregation and racial discrimination as mistakes on the part of the government and he set out to make substantial changes to the status quo. In doing so, he acted upon Thoreau's concept that every person retains the right to judge civil laws for decency and credibility. "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," (Birmingham Jail 82). Should one find the law to be in the best interest of each individual as well as society as a whole, he should abide by it and make every effort to live by its standard. But reversely, should the law be found guilty of evil intentions and causing more harm than good, it is the duty of every person under that law to disregard it and make an attempt "to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support," (Disobedience 6).
on ways to be civil but disobedient, they have opposite ways of convicing you. Dr.
As one of the most controversial condoned actions of the time, Thoreau deeply opposed the possession and treatment of slaves. He demonstrated his transgressions with the government’s approval of slavery through the refusal to pay taxes to the state and the church. Thoreau spoke to the people in order to entice them for the banishment of slavery through civil protest in his speech, he wanted to induce urgency within his message to obtain liberties for all and governmental equity. Through the use of rhetorical questions and repetition, both urgency and importance were conveyed in his speech to protest slavery. Thoreau was able to motivate a different, more impactful response from the audience in using rhetorical questions. Likewise, these are used to purposely prompt the audience to think about the point being made rather than elicit an answer. Further provoking the audience’s exploration into the objection to slavery and war, he expedited his own beliefs in the midst of constructing a commonly rejected belief with an urgent antidote for the people. Thoreau asks of the audience why one would allow unjust laws against others to exist: “Unjust laws exist: … transgress them at once? Why is it not more … provide for reform? Why does it not … minority?” It is these questions that support his purpose for change, he provides the audience with questions to elicit a calculated response that correlates with his beliefs. When Thoreau employs rhetorical questions, he applies several one after another. Therefore, it is this structure that sets the stage for his immediate messages to the audience and their need to respond. Also, just as the Mexican-American war was reiterated throughout the speech, slavery is in constant recognition as well. Like how repetition was used for the war, Thoreau presented the audience with a continual exposure to his
Dr. Martin Luther King addressed many topics in, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. He answered all the issues that were aimed towards him in a very skillful and well thought out manner. These issues came from, “A Call For Unity”, which was a letter published by eight local clergymen expressing their feelings about what Dr. King was doing. One concern in particular that King did an outstanding job of confronting was that of the clergymen’s anxiety about him breaking the law. King addresses the question of, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” by clarifying that there are just and unjust laws. He also goes on to explain the difference between the two, the effect of unjust laws on the people that they are aimed towards, as
His attitudes help decipher his meanings and intentions of informing about philosophy as they give a more specific innuendo as to what he wants the reader to understand from what he’s saying. However, it’s quite difficult to narrow down what type of people Thoreau can intellectually connect with, because he doesn’t take the time to get to know them personally, which can be hard to follow. But, his applications of literary devices made it broad enough for anyone to be able to see his perspective and opinions and understand enough to be able to see it themselves in their daily
In 1963, Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the South, so civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. brought his campaign of nonviolent resistance to Birmingham. After leading a demonstration on April 12, 1963, King was arrested for violating demonstration ordinances. Shortly after, eight white clergymen in Birmingham sent out a public statement claiming that although they support desegregation, they advise against anymore protests advocated by King, stating that the “demonstrations are unwise and untimely” (Carpenter et al). While in jail, King took an opportunity to continue his campaign by responding to these eight white clergymen. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King uses religious and philosophical allusions to effectively convey his intellect and credibility to his audience: the clergymen and his followers.
Freedom from anything is a product of the awareness that one must revolt for a higher moral cause to get a good outcome. People have to fight for what they believe in and speak their word to get what they want in society. Sometimes those groups get what they want and other times people are not so fortunate. In the eyes of Henry David Thoreau, he believed in exactly that. As an American transcendentalist, Thoreau enthusiastically maintained these beliefs through his journalism. He implemented his approval for independence and fairness in his essay called Civil Disobedience. This essay was written after Thoreau spent a night in the Birmingham jail and he thought about the American society. This essay is know very well known and has influenced many civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. King regularly used the philosophies that Thoreau wrote in his paper during the bus boycotts in Alabama. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a nonviolent protest where the African American citizens of Alabama rejected the use of the buses until desegregation was passed. The protest all started when Rosa Parks put her foot down and did not give up her seat to a white male on the bus. She was later arrested for violating a city law requiring racial segregation of public buses. The boycott was ultimately ended by the Supreme Court decision to desegregate the buses. Throughout the entirety of the passive protest, MLK proceeded with the essay written by Thoreau in his mind so that he would never let the white people change his view of equal rights. He kept striving to achieve perfect equality between blacks and whites to make a change in the faulty society.
...church. With each claim the clergymen provided, King refuted their claim with evidence and more by describing what should be done with segregation laws. King’s tone in this piece was appropriate because he did not come off as someone who wanted to spread hate and prove the clergymen wrong. He genuinely wanted to change their views and show them the flaws of society regarding policemen and even the church. His tone was not threatening or spiteful, he made sure to address that he was trying to come off as respectful and concerned.
Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau each write exemplary persuasive essays that depict social injustice and discuss civil disobedience, which is the refusal to comply with the law in order to prove a point. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King speaks to a specific audience: the African Americans, and discusses why he feels they should bring an end to segregation. Thoreau on the other hand, in “Civil Disobedience,” speaks to a broader, non-addressed audience as he largely expresses his feelings towards what he feels is an unjust government. Both essays however, focus on the mutual topics of morality and justice and use these topics to inform and motivate their audience to, at times, defy the government in order to establish the necessary justice.
...artin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X approach the same problem differently. They both use pathos, a central metaphor, and give a warning. However, Martin Luther King Jr. uses pathos to create a welcoming and patriotic feeling whereas Malcolm X uses fear. Martin Luther King Jr. uses a check, used on a daily basis, as the object of his central metaphor; Malcolm X uses a powder keg, a very damaging and dangerous object, as the object of his central metaphor. Lastly, Martin Luther King Jr. warns his audience that the people of color will revolt passively. On the other hand, Malcolm X warns his audience that the people of color will revolt violently with bloodshed. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X both achieve their goal. After reading both speeches, Malcolm X seems, in my opinion, to have made a greater impact on the white community because fear is stronger than joy.
They both have a radical way of thinking where believe they people should rise up and fight for what they want in a government. In Steinbeck’s novel he believes that the migrants should fight back against the government since they took all their land, belongings, families, homes and much more. For Thoreau, he believes that the people should fight back because it is one’s civil duty to fight back and refuse unfair laws. Thoreau believed that the people should fight back against the government due to their support of slavery and their aggressiveness in war. Thoreau believes that the only solution would be fighting back because voting achieves nothing and no reforms occur in the government. He thinks that “every man [should] make know what kind of government would command his respect” (Thoreau 1). This is only achievable through the people standing up for
Henry David Thoreau was a poet, social philosopher, and educator in the early to mid- 1800s (Hampton). He graduated from Harvard University in 1837 and, upon his return to his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson, also a philosopher and poet (Hampton, “Ralph Waldo Emerson”). Emerson was also the leader of the Transcendentalist movement which was based on the idea that people should lead by example -- social reform begins with the individual, not the government -- and that the movement should be peaceful (Woodlief, Ruehl). Thoreau agreed with this approach until the United States invaded Mexico in May, 1846 (Brown, Witherell). Opposed to slavery, Thoreau saw the invasion of Mexico as an attempt by the government to extend slavery westward. In his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” published in 1849 with the original title, “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau protests against the government and states that is a man’s duty to rise up against the government when the government commits a wrong (Thoreau). In his writings, Thoreau uses the three rhetorical approaches of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in his attempts to persuade his readers to his point of view (Heinrichs).
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King is able to effectively argue against criticisms through the use of passionate and calm tones, vivid metaphors, and biblical and historical allusions. King uses numerous biblical allusions to resonate with his clergymen audience and to make them realize that they were condemning a righteous movement. The vivid language in metaphors captures emotion and expands understanding. Mr. King was able to do anything to end the injustice in Birmingham and his commitment was shown in his tone.
Gandhi and Thoreau both had injustices their confronted with, they both wanted to protest something their government was doing. They did it in different but alike ways, civil disobedience and nonviolent protest. Both ways got the action they wanted and needed to be able to fix the problem that was displayed. They both wanted the same outcome, a fix of the problem. They knew the way to fix the problem and injustice was to protest the problem.