Pathos In Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Pathos in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed for leading a nonviolent protest against racism and segregation of the black community in Birmingham, Alabama. He wrote from his jail cell, a “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in response to eight white clergy men who criticized him for coming to Alabama to promoting a demonstration for desegregation. In his letter, King makes use of the rhetorical appeal, pathos, to stir up emotional feelings in his argument against the racial injustices the Negroes are suffering at the hands of white people. King uses pathos to convey a sense of time by expressing how Negroes in other nations are moving toward equality at “jet-like speeds” while in Alabama they are moving at “horse-and-buggy pace” at simply allowing blacks to be served coffee from a lunch counter (King 741). He uses a these images to help symbolize the amount of time they have waited, and the pace at which they are moving at towards equality. Paragraph’s six thru nine are filled …show more content…
King presents dramatic examples of the heartbreak black families must endure in order to gain the sympathy of the clergymen when he tells about the reality of a parent having to face their daughter who has “tears welling up in her eyes when she is told Funtown is closed to colored people” (741). He attempts to make the clergymen feel bad about a little girl being segregated, and show how its effects cause her to be angry toward white people. King uses strong words and images to appeal to the clergymen’s emotions. His use of pathos clearly questions the clergymen’s judgement of what is right and wrong especially when it comes to the treatment of human beings, no matter if they are black or
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