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Juliann Wick
Professor Napoirkowski
English 1302.12
25 October 2018
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”; Logos, Ethos, and Pathos
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written in 1963 at the cusp of the battle against
segregation. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote the letter while he was in the Birmingham, Alabama
city jail, after being arrested for peacefully protesting segregation. He is writing to fellow
clergymen, because they do not approve of his actions in Birmingham, and are questioning why
he is there in the first place. King made an effective argument for people to join him in the fight
against segregation through his use of logos, ethos, and pathos.
King uses logos to strengthen his argument as a whole. Logos means logic; the methods
that an author uses to reason their arguments. There are two types of logos deductive reasoning,
general to specific, and inductive reasoning, specific to general. King uses both types of
arguments in his letter. He uses deductive reasoning in his first paragraph about just and unjust
laws. He starts out with the sentences, “Now, what in the difference between the two? How does
one determine whether a law is just or unjust?” (King 4). King uses a question as his first two
sentences in the paragraph, which makes it deductive reason because the questions are more
general what does the reader think. The questions also help Kings argument because he is trying
to get the reader to figure out what they think is the difference between just and unjust laws.
After his questions, he then tells the reader specifically what the differences are, “Any law that
uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust” (King 4).
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King uses inductive reasoning in his second paragraph about just and unjust laws. King
starts out with more specific sentences, “Let us consider a more concrete example of just and
unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a
minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself” (King 4). He tells the reader exactly
what an unjust law is, and gives examples in the rest of the paragraph. However, his concluding
sentence is more general, “Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered
democratically structured?” (King 5). King ends with a question to get the reader to think about
the answer and make them wants to continue to read and see if he answers it. Kings use of logos
both strengths his argument and entices his reader to continue until the end of the letter.
King uses ethos to make the reader understand why he writing, and why they should
listen to what he is saying. Ethos is the ethics of the paper; the writer establishes him/herself as
someone who knows what they are talking about and has the authority to talk about it. King
starts out the paper telling the reader who he is, what he does and why he is in Birmingham. “I
have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference…We
have some eighty five [sic] affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights…So I, along with several members of my staff,
am here because I was invited here” (King 1). King is able to write about segregation and have
his readers trust in what he is writing, because he is a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conferences that is nationally fighting against segregation. He is able to write to the Clergyman
and have them listen to him because he is religious man. He has credibility through the church.
Kings use of pathos draws in readers and sparks emotions that make them want to join his
fight against segregation. Pathos means pathetic; the emotional state of the audience. Through his
use of word choice King shows the truth about segregation. When King talks about the effects of
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segregation on blacks he uses the words “vicious mob lynch … smothering …ominous…
harried…haunted…degenerating…nobodiness [sic]” (King 3-4). He is trying to pull at the
reader’s heart strings, and draw more people against segregation. He wants his readers to
understand what black families have to go through, and make them want to fight with them
against their oppressors. He uses the word “nobodiness [sic]” when he describes how black
families feel because of segregation. He is trying to get his readers to fight against segregation,
because of the way that it isolates and tearing down people.
Some people may claim that King used a fallacy in his paper, which makes his argument
less effective. In his letter King wrote, “I’m afraid it is much too long [his letter] to take your
precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a
comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than
write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?” (King 11). Critics may say that
King used an appeal to pity fallacy, because he wanted his readers to feel sorry for him. An
appeal to pity fallacy is when the author tries to persuade readers to adopt a position for reasons
of compassion rather than logic. However, King didn’t use a fallacy because he was not
complaining, but was apologizing to his readers. He is writing about what it is that he does in his
jail cell, while he is trying to get people to join against segregation.
King used logos, ethos, and pathos in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, to strengthen
his argument against segregation. Because of his word choices and examples from his life and
the lives of other blacks, King brought forth the truth about segregation. He showed how
segregation and oppression is destroying families and communities. King’s argument is strong
and he stands by his decision to come to Birmingham, Alabama.
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