Micah Davis

1-24-18
Comp II

Letter From Birmingham Jail

1. Dr. King’s thesis in his letter can be found in the third and fourth paragraph of said letter,

which states he is in Birmingham because there is injustice being made towards African

Americans from the white community. “Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice

is here…Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

2. “Letter From Birmingham Jail” begins with Dr. King responding to a letter several clergy

men sent criticizing him for his protesting in Birmingham. Dr. King states his

discontentment with the clergy men’s in his letter as well as addressing their concerns.

Through out the letter he comes back to the use of the word outsider which the clergyman

criticized him of being seeing as he was not from Birmingham and was their to “stir up

controversy”. In the letter he openly admits that even though his is not from Birmingham, the

pain and injustice dealt to the black community is universal in America. Through out the

letter he also appeals to the christian faith comparing his struggles to that of the apostle Paul

who was jailed for his teachings of Jesus, he also quotes passages of the Bible to appeal to

the clergy men’s pathos. He also appeals to their logos by speaking of laws that were put in

place to stop segregation but are not being followed thus making them unjust laws.

3. The appeal to ethos in his letter can be seen in the quote, “I am in Birmingham because

injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried

their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the

Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far

corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond
Micah Davis
1-24-18
Comp II
my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.”

this quote helps his audience understand his role as a religious leader, and why he must be

where sin and injustice is because it is his job/ calling to aid those who find themselves in

these situations. Pathos on the other hand is used through out his letter to appeal to the

audience’s sense of emotion. There are instances where he speaks about his own children

and how their innocence is gone because they are no longer able to see themselves as equals

with other kids, but his best quote that really captures pathos in his letter is, “We have waited

for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.” Reading this the

audience begins to understand emotionally that patience isn’t the issue with civil rights

movements, it’s the fact there even has to be a movement in the first place. Along with

pathos Dr. King implores the readers logos as well, stating facts that show the injustices done

to the black community, “You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break

the law. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge the people to obey

the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in public schools, it is rather

strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking the law.”

4. The critiques as stated above are the clergy men of Birmingham, which wrote a letter to Dr.

King condemning and criticizing his protest in Alabama. Through out the letter Dr. King

address their concerns usually found italicized and in quotes, for example, ““How can you

advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?”” Dr. King then answers that quote with,

“The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the

first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to

obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would

agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all.””. His use of the bible and
Micah Davis
1-24-18
Comp II
quotes from religious authorities such as St. Augustine, neutralize the clergy men’s

arguments because they are made to look at their own religious preachings and see the flaws

in their own logic.

5. The author of the letter is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is a religious leader and civil

right’s advocate, currently in Birmingham jail in Alabama, arrested for not having a parade

permit while protesting. The purpose of the letter is to address the concerns of the clergy

men in Birmingham, while appealing to their pathos and logos, the agenda being to stop

unjust treatment of the black community and to have them understand his characters and

reason for being there. The tone of the letter is chastising and powerful. In the letter he

condemns the acts done to the black community, but also remains ever present in his ideals.

This genera of writing is what I would consider political writing, as is appeals to laws and

leaders in a community that he sees as unjust.

6. One quote that strikes me in this letter is the quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice

everywhere.” which even today has roots in our political atmosphere. Currently protest are

happing every where to protest police cruelty and the cruelty of our government against the

minority, even places like Arkansas where things of that nature tend to slid or be overlooked

are being called to attention for the reason the quote states, injustice in the smallest areas and

spread to the whole.