Johnson
1
Abigail Johnson
Dr. Trent
WRI 234-82C
22 October 2018
The Call to All
“In deep disappointment, I have wept over the laxity of the church” (King 379). Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. lamented the church’s indifference during the Civil Rights Movement as
he authored “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” whilst a prisoner in Alabama. After a series of
non-violent protests for racial equality, Dr. King was arrested in Birmingham. In 1963, the Civil
Rights Movement was spreading throughout the United States, but a lack of obligation
permeated the church, in turn slowing the progress of equality. As a multi-generational pastor
and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. King responded to the
criticism of organized protests from white clergymen in his letter. Within his letter, he
effectively used pathos, logos, and ethos to appeal to his audience, all the while engaging syntax
and tone appropriate to the social context of the time.
A specific rhetorical strategy applied in “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” was ethical
appeal establishing Dr. King’s work and authorship. Dr. King established himself as a
theologically educated voice. “I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me
to meet each of you... as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother” (King 383). Because Dr.
King’s letter was written as a response to clergymen, the emphasis of his association with the
church made his criticisms of the church less cruel and more constructive. He responded to their
criticism with further credibility: “So I am here, along with several members of my staff,
because we were invited here. I am here because I have basic organizational ties here” (King
Johnson
2
367). He explained that the demonstration was not a spontaneous decision, but had been a long,
deliberate process of determining the most effective way to prove a point without haphazardly
impacting other current events like the March election. “These are the practical answers. They
establish (if accepted) that he is not in fact an outsider, or at least not a complete outsider”
(Fulkerson 127). By providing a thorough explanation for the day of protest, Dr. King further
developed his credibility. As the president of the Southern Christian leadership conference and a
clergyman, Dr. King effectively provided evidence of the first classical appeal, ethos.
Dr. King established the second classical appeal by providing logical evidence in his
argument through philosophical, historical, and Biblical references. Most significantly, Dr. King
discussed St. Augustine’s theory of laws by describing the dichotomy of law: “The answer is
found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just and there are unjust laws. I
would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all”” (King 371). Through
logical reasoning, Dr. King urged the audience to decide if segregation laws were even laws at
all because of their injustice. “A major source of anxiety concerned the movement’s principled
disobedience to law,” but Dr. King confronted the anxiety with direct description of the injustice
of the law (Berry 110). The inclusion of historical references, like Hitler, logically encouraged
the audience to take a second look at the morality of their actions. “We can never forget that
everything Hitler did was “legal”” (King 373). Hitler’s law-abiding practices effectively
provided a striking example to which Americans could compare their actions. Finally, Dr. King
included Biblical logic for his audience, “Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is
here... and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus
Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to
carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown” (King 367). Dr. King directly
Johnson
3
compared his work towards pursuing Civil Rights to the way that Paul spread the Gospel. His
audience admired Paul, the apostle, so that comparison boosted his credibility. “His most
significant and searching allusion, one that to a great extent determines not only his persona but
the form of the “Letter” as a whole, is to St. Paul” (Berry 114). Paul’s positive impact in the
Christian faith logically encouraged the audience to agree with Dr. King as he compared himself
to Paul. The addition of the philosophical, historical, and Biblical references provided several
facets in which the audience could reason through Dr. King’s appeal.
The final classical appeal that Dr. King used to strengthen his letter was an emotional
appeal through detailed descriptions. Most notably, Dr. King described an interaction with his
daughter:
...when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as
you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public
amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling
up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children,
and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky,
and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a
bitterness toward white people... (King 370-371)
The sentenced continued in detail of many other discriminatory realities, and became “a classical
Ciceronian period, recognized for its capacity to move cumulatively toward an intense emotional
and intellectual impact” (Berry 119). He included such descriptive experiences, appealing to the
emotional part of his audience. This effectively evoked sadness and righteous anger within his
reader, urging his audience to take action. The inclusion of real-life experiences, especially with
his daughter, was relatable for many readers, serving as a reminder that innocent children were
Johnson
4
even impacted by segregation. Dr. King appealed to his audience’s emotions; he effectively
pushed them away from comfortability and laxity.
Dr. King engaged a larger audience than simply the clergymen addressed in his letter.
The clergymen were directly referenced on multiple occasions within the letter, “My dear Fellow
Clergyman, while confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement
calling our present activities “unwise and untimely”” (King 366). Dr. King directly addressed
the eight clergymen who criticized his actions during the Birmingham sit-in, but the contents of
the letter transcend those eight men and could be applied to the entire general public. “The
clergymen functioned rhetorically as a synecdoche, as a representation of the larger audience
King wanted to reach, and his decision to respond to their statement and his manner of doing so
were both strategic” (Leff & Utley 41). The overall intended audience was greater than just the
clergymen. After all, Dr. King would not have written such a response if he only wanted eight
men to take action. All Americans reading the letter were incriminated for their laxity, but Dr.
King chose to directly reference the clergymen in order to further his intended purpose
The specific purpose and personal tone of Dr. King’s letter justified his actions in
response to the criticism from the clergymen and called the church to act against injustice. The
conclusion of his letter restated his purpose, “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial
prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our feardrenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty” (King 383).
By ending the letter in a prophetic manner, Dr. King called his audience to change their ways
because it directly impacted each individual in the United States. That direct impact was also
apparent in Dr. King’s tone: “The invocation of specific individuals as an ostensible audience
Johnson
5
allowed King to cultivate a personal tone and to project his personality in a way that would have
been impossible in a document address to no one in particular” (Leff & Utley 41). By including
a direct audience, Dr. King cultivated an intimate tone in his letter. He used examples from his
own life to describe the injustice of segregation, thereby accomplishing his purpose.
The main topic of Dr. King’s letter was participation in the Civil Rights Movement. He
addressed the nonviolent protests and the ethical issues behind racial inequality in the United
States. Some of the ethical issues that he addressed were the unfair treatment of colored people
in society and the direct impact on children. Dr. King then discussed why he was in Birmingham
and the importance of the chosen time for protest while including a description of the
experiences of black people to call attention to the unjust laws unnecessarily holding people
captive. Dr. King also addressed the church directly; he urged the church to step out of
indifference, see the inequality, and to take action during this time of injustice. The synthesis of
topics covered in the letter effectively addressed each portion of the critique by the clergymen,
strengthening Dr. King’s argument.
Dr. King’s particular syntax in his letter strengthened his overall argument for people to
take action. His letter embodied the voice of a prisoner as he described the impact of
segregation, all the while predicting the future of the United States while writing with the voice
of a prophet. The inclusion of the extended sentence on pages 370-371 was a powerful
syntactical move thereby exemplifying the severity of racial discrimination. So much pain in
one single sentence created a dramatic effect for the audience. Dr. King chose his words wisely
in his letter, not reacting to criticism with words of anger, but he stated, “I must honestly reiterate
that I have been disappointed with the church” (King 378). His disappointment implied the
potential for the church to change; throughout the entire letter, Dr. King applied “verbal control”
Johnson
6
by avoiding accusatory language (Leff & Utley 44). Using both the voice of a prisoner and the
voice of a prophet, Dr. King lamented injustice while calling upon the church to be the catalyst
of change for the future.
Through his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” Dr. King invited the church to step out
of their comfort zone and take action against the injustice of racial inequality. He applied the
classical appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos in order to best persuade his audience to take action.
By keeping his audience, both clergy and lay people, in mind, Dr. King most powerfully appeals
to the logos side of his readers with the inclusion of philosophical, historical, and Biblical
arguments. He incorporated the Bible directly to his cause by comparing himself to St. Paul,
directly appealing to his audience. Using rhetorical strategies to develop his argument, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. called his audience to reevaluate the inequality of segregation in order to
drive them to take action.
Johnson
7
Works Cited
Berry, Edward I. “Doing Time: King's ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’” Rhetoric & Public
Affairs, vol. 8, no. 1, 2005, pp. 109–132.
Fulkerson, Richard P. “The Public Letter as a Rhetorical Form: Structure, Logic, and Style in
King's ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’” Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 65, no. 2, 1979,
pp. 121–136.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “”Letter from Birmingham City Jail”” Comp. Christopher M. Anson. 75
Readings across the Curriculum: [an Anthology]. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
366-383. Print.
Leff, Michael C., and Ebony A. Utley. “Instrumental and Constitutive Rhetoric in Martin Luther
King Jr.'s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, vol. 7, no. 1, 2004,
pp. 37–52.