Letter from Birmingham Jail: A Contemporary Literary Analysis Seanette Culmer College

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. This is a quote directly from Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ of 1963. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American minister and Civil Rights Activist fond of peaceful protests during a time period when racial segregation, racism, prejudice, and white privilege was at its peak in the United States. During this era, black Americans were constantly the victims of routine attacks, humiliation, murder, and the denial of basic human rights with the perpetrators of these acts going without punishment in most cases. Dr. King’s letter played a crucial role in the Birmingham campaign in 1963 and was written by him during his imprisonment. This letter motivated Black Americans to stand up for their rights and left many whites aware of the segregation within their communities. The ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ was remarkably successful due to Dr. Martin Luther King’s use of emotional appeal (ethos, logos, and pathos) which played a key role in inspiring those who read it.

One way that Dr. King successfully used emotional appeal in the ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ is through the use of emotional appeal in the form of ethos to persuade readers to...