Letter From Birmingham Jail

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is considered by many to be a masterpiece of American essay writing and political rhetoric. King’s adept handling of persuasive appeals and his interventions in the representation of the stakeholders in the struggle for civil rightsallowed him to introduce the Civil Rights Movement to a national audience that may well have had negative perceptions of it.

King uses appeals to emotion, reason, and character/authority tostake out a stronger position for the protestors. King uses appeals to emotion throughout the essay to dramatize the impact of segregation and racism on African-Americans and to humanize them, an important task given the lack of knowledge or misinformation about African-Americans that would have dominated popular culture of the day.King also uses appeals to reason and facts to support his case. For example, King outlines the steps for using nonviolent direct action (87) and then systematically explains how the SCLC and ACMHR followed each of the steps before protesting, thus countering accusations from the ministers (and a national audience) that the protests were ill-timed. Finally, King relies on figures like Jesus and the apostles to establish a precedent for his involvement in seeminglysecular affairs, a move that helps him to establish credibility.