Letter From Birmingham Jail

In paragrah 11 what examples King uses that appeal to the reader's sense of empathy. Which example do you believe to be the MOST effective? Why?

''We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was ''well timed'' according to the timeable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation, For years now I have heard the word ''wait''nhas almost always meant ''never''. It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide , relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that ''justice too longdelayed is justice denied. We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence , and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown yur sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, brutalize,and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impuntity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot 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 disort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, ''Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?''; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep nigt after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ''white''and ''colored'';(however old you are) and your last name becomes ''John,'' and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title ''Mrs.''; when you are harried by day and and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to expect next , and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ''nobodyness''- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait .There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the beakness of corroding despair. I hope , sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.''

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"... when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot 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 disort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, ''Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?''

I find the above section to evoke the most empathy (in my eyes) because it speaks to the child.... the effects of racism and segregation on those to young to understand. It also opens eyes as to the bitterness segregation bred in those children.... to be told "no"..... to be told you "can't" .... to be cheated of dreams and hopes..... to be made to feel hopeless.

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Letter From Birmingham Jail