Martin Luther King's Ethos In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. He was a gifted speaker and his non-violent approach to protest gained a lot of traction. A famed orator, he wrote the famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in response to the “A Call for Unity” published by Clergy after a march in Birmingham. His letter was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, and it reached into the hearts of many people. One of the reasons why his letter was so potent and still remains influential and iconic today is because of the sophisticated and subtle rhetorical strategies King used. Specifically, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used ethos, pathos, and other rhetorical strategies like anaphora, mimesis, and antithesis to argue that people had a responsibility to take action and that then was the time to take action and stop waiting.
Dr. Martin Luther King appealed to patriotism as a form of pathos to argue that people needed to take action and fix the race issues that America was facing and to defend his strategy for change. First, he subtly reminded Americans of how their own country was formed when he explained how the laws that African Americans have to endure are unfair: “A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law” (178). The reason why the colonies revolted is …show more content…
Specifically, in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, King used pathos in the form of appealing to patriotism and mimesis, antithesis, and anaphora. All those devices were carefully constructed in a way to most appeal to the audience and convince them to join King’s side. They each had some use, be it getting the reader to understand African Americans’ plight or their importance to America, or to get the reader to want to act and
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