More MLKj

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech may be a good example of many aspects of rhetoric, but his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is even richer in rhetorical elements.

For one thing, his ethos in this speech—Aristotle’s “good sense, good moral character, and goodwill” (Bizzell 213)—is much more explicit, for he is defending himself against whites who consider him to be an extremist. When he explains that he is backed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and its nearly one hundred affiliates, he proves that he is not alone in his ideals and that many respectable people are behind him (Lunsford 164). By using phrases like the “more excellent way of love and non-violent protest,” he discounts the critics who would try to make him seem like a hateful or vengeful person (171). And to convince his readers (many of whom are religious leaders) that he is a man of character, he makes frequent comparisons between himself and other famous people most likely respected by his readers, quoting people like Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus (171-72). In fact, he explicitly compares himself to Paul the apostle multiple times, explaining first that he has come to Birmingham because like Paul, he must bring the truth beyond his “home town” (164). Then, he says that if he is an extremist, then Paul must be, too, implying that he is essentially following in Paul’s footsteps (171). All of these techniques contribute to King’s ethos in this speech and give him credibility to his readers.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King also skillfully uses pathos to connect to readers’ emotions. Long passages graphically describing the injustices experienced by blacks hearken back to and expand upon similar passages in “I Have a Dream.” Perhaps the most powerful example is his litany of short anecdotes describing discrimination against black people (166-67). It includes hypothetical situations like a black parent having to explain to a daughter why “Funtown is closed to colored children” and shorter examples like the way black women are not given “the respected title ‘Mrs.’” (167). Passages like this are certain to arouse empathy and even guilt in racist readers as well as righteous anger in blacks who have experienced similar offenses.

But King is not merely emotional. Rather, his dexterous logic serves to hammer in the truth of discrimination’s hypocrisy. On 168, in a section about “unjust” laws, he gives several definitions of these laws and proceeds to show how segregation laws fit into these categories. For instance, he defines an “unjust” law as one that makes rules for the minority that the majority does not have to follow. Using this definition with which most people would agree, he then shows that Alabama’s racist laws are unfair, partly because Alabama does not let all black people vote.

These three types of rhetoric are just some of the ways King uses in this letter to make his points; in it, King indeed employs all of what Aristotle calls “available means of persuasion” (Bizzell 181).