...Justice for All I will be sharing my essay with Kanny Huang, Mariah Musgrove, and Mr. Romine. Kanny and Mr. Romine are both males while Mariah is a female. Kanny and Mariah are both fellow classmates and Mr. Romine has a master’s degree in language arts. Kanny is of Asian ethnic background and is sixteen years old while Mr. Romine is of caucasian ethnic background and is forty-seven. Mariah is also sixteen years old and of caucasian ethnic background. They have all already read “Letter From Birmingham Jail” and very good background information on the topic. They all know Martin Luther King pushed for equality in a nonviolent way. Kanny and Mariah are both writing their own essays over the selected core reading. They too will be summarizing...
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...Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the letter from Birmingham jail in 1963. He wrote it while he had been in jail for eleven days. Dr. King at the time had many supporters, but he also had several haters who disagreed with his beliefs and values. Martin Luther King, Jr. received hate from people in leadership position, but he continued to proclaim freedom and racial equality. The purpose of “ Letter from Birmingham Jail” deals with a response from Dr. King to his critics and “ clergymen”. Dr. King desired to make his followers aware of the problems that were occurring in Birmingham, so that they could in some way help him. Dr. King’s letter serves as a historic and well-known document that became part of the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King begins...
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...Letter From Birmingham Jail Vs. “I Have a Dream Speech” The first way that a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “ I have a Dream” differ are in their intended audience, as one is intended for a group of white clergymen while the other is intended to rally a large group. This difference in audience and how Dr. King chooses to appeal to each of his audiences causes for the choices in language and the purpose of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I have a Dream” to differ. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is addressed to white clergymen, and the purpose of the letter is to defend the demonstrations that were taking place. As Dr. King is trying to defend the demonstrations to these white clergymen, his language choice is quite interesting. One brilliant way that he chooses to defend the demonstrations is by appealing to the white men through his choice of Anglo terms. For instance, in the letter, Dr. King writes, “Just as the prophets of the eighth century century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saint the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns…I am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town” (King). This choice of wording makes Dr. King’s argument stronger since as these white men disagree with Dr. King and his form of peaceful protest, the white clergymen will not be able to argue back because he is using religious references that if the white men chose to argue against, it would make them look like hypocrites (Eubank). While...
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...The Letter from Birmingham Jail essay is about Dr. Martin Luther King as he addresses questions from the surrounding clergyman in the Birmingham area about his protest. Dr. Martin Luther King explains why he came to Birmingham to help his committee as well as to help desegregate the extreme divide community of Birmingham in an effort to bring justice to the world and bring the community together to stop segregation as a whole. The Letter from Birmingham Jail essay is about Dr. Martin Luther King answering the question to several clergyman. He first explains his reasoning for being in Birmingham in that he has to help his committee. Dr. King then addresses that he is trying to bring justice to the community of Birmingham through his non-violent protest. He also explain why his non-violent methods are very efficient in role of stopping segregation. He also answers the to the protest being untimely as he explains the committee’s effort to wait for the perfect time so they can captivate the community but they could no longer wait any longer the conditions in the African-American community are dangerous and a threat to the society alone. Dr. King then states the segregation is an unjust because a majority group makes a minority group follow rules but these rules are not binding. King also explains just laws in that it is man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God and uplifts personality while, an unjust law is out of harmony with moral law and it degrades...
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...content is more important than style. In the case of “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s prominent style creates a platform for the development of the context of his opinions. A stylistic device King uses in both essays in order to convey his message is the allusion. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King references the Boston tea party, destruction that was then deemed gallant by the American public. King references this occurrence from the past to clarify that when he was arrested he was in fact doing the ethical thing, but it just happened to be illegal. Doing the moral thing, in Kings opinion, and doing the legal thing do not constantly have to correlate. This allusion also showcases that civil disobedience is not...
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...Letter From Birmingham In April of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama for his efforts in the civil rights movement. One day after King's arrest, a full-page advertisement taken out by a group of local, white, moderate, clergymen appeared in The Birmingham News. They attacked the demonstrations as "unwise and untimely" and concluded, "We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham. From his prison cell, King replied not only to the ministers' letter but also to an educated, white, middle-class audience, by writing his response in the margins of the newspaper and on toilet paper . "I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was well timed in the view of those who have not suffered from the disease of segregation," King, wrote in what was later published as the essay, Letter from Birmingham Jail. The 6500 word letter went on to explain and make clear to the clergy and to the world why the struggle against racism must not be deferred. King's main claim in this letter is that no matter what the circumstances are it is far beyond time for the black community to stand up and fight for what is rightfully theirs, the same rights and freedoms accorded to the white community. King effectively accomplishes this task through the structure of the essay and in his use of pathos, ethos, and logos to defend his arguments. King's structure of the essay is purposeful in its attempt to sway...
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...Letter from Birmingham Jail After Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned in Birmingham city jail for a peaceful protest, eight white clergymen from Alabama wrote an article entitled “A Call for Unity”. In it they agreed with the need for desegregation and acknowledged the common social injustices in Birmingham, but ultimately criticized King’s approach and called direct action “unwise and untimely”. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a response to these criticisms as King states in the opening paragraph of the letter addressed to “My Dear Fellow Clergymen”. He has written “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a response to eight white men who share in his faith, his cause, but dismiss his approach. The audience, also, extends to African Americans at this time, members of the Christian church, and even segregationists willing to read it. It was made public in the June 12, 1963 edition of the Christian Century. The audience, throughout the years, has grown to encompass historians, students, and anyone who has studied the civil rights era. The purpose behind...
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...Nick Genaris Professor Ngoh Protest Literature 21th October 2015 Letter from Birmingham Jail-Rhetorical Analysis Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in order to address the biggest issue in Birmingham and the United States at the time (racism) and to also address the critics he received from the clergymen. The letter discusses the great injustices happening toward the Black community in Birmingham and although it is primarily aimed at the clergymen King writes the letter for all to read. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. uses logos, alliteration/repetition, and ethos to back up his belief that nonviolent protesting and disobedience is the most effective means to protest anything that needs to be changed, in this case segregation. After reading King’s letter I, and almost anyone, would come to the conclusion that King is deeply motivated to help against any injustice in the US. Who else would go to such lengths if they didn’t? He knows how persuasive he can be by using his knowledge of the English language, and he uses this to speak out against people who doubt him (clergymen) and to incite a different way of thinking into the people in hopes of change. Dr. King’s letter is extremely effective because it provides an enormous amount of evidence to the reader that he and his company are being treated unjustly and also that King truly cares about making a change for the good of the city. It also re-directs attention...
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...strongly agree with Martin Luther King Jr., in his essay titled Letter from Birmingham Jail, when he asserts that it is the obligation of people to resist unjust laws. King initially wrote the essay in response to the open letter by a group of clergymen from Birmingham, Alabama, who were criticizing the methods in which King and his supporters were protesting. Not only does King defend his position, but he also expands on the idea of just and unjust laws. Essentially, King says that it is crucial that people be aware of laws that are just and unjust, how they are applied, and what should be done if a law is unjust. I agree with what King says about just and unjust laws, because I believe that there will always be unjust laws. It is very dangerous if a society, or really any organization, begins to blindly follow the laws put out by authority figures. This would allow the authority to take advantage of the members of society and focus on personal/private interests. It is a question of when, not if, that authority will create an unjust law/rule. This is due primarily to the fact that humans are flawed on a fundamental level. We know this because religion has long recognized this fundamental weakness. The Catholic Church itself has...
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...Essay #3 Compare/Contrast Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” with Aung San Suu Kyi’s excerpts “From In Quest of Democracy.” The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. is known in today’s society as peaceful civil rights leader. In 1957, he led a boycott against the city’s bus lines due to the segregation laws. The result of this boycott was the desegregation of the bus line. That boycott was a non-violent protest in which the blacks within that city refused to ride the bus until change was made. King’s group held seminar’s teaching nonviolence starting out by saying “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?” (205 RTW) Reverend King was well versed in philosophy and practiced nonviolent civil disobedience, so much so that when a judge ordered an unconstitutional injunction forbidding King and others from protesting, he defied them and was arrested and jailed. While in jail he wrote “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, he was unable to send it out himself so he had it smuggled out of the jail. His letter was an eloquently written letter using examples from our past to show that it is not nonviolent protests that should be illegal but those actions of the ones in charge of law and order who us abuse their power by beating, spraying hoses, and arresting the peaceful protesters trying to make positive change in our country. His letter explains that as a man of God he doesn’t understand the white clergy of the city...
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...Eduardo Ortiz-Montelongo English 1A: Essay #1 Professor Gomez 28 September 2010 Both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were goal-oriented leaders. Gandhi desired self-rule for India. King wanted first class citizenship for African Americans. Instead of separating religion and politics, both men incorporated both in their leadership roles. Both men chose nonviolence as their strategy because they had felt that it was the only practical solution capable of achieving their objectives. The ideas of nonviolent movements were difficult to achieve, but they were not impossible to accomplish which is shown in the work of these two great leaders Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Two men from two different time periods but yet they have the same views on how to establish a nonviolent movement. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were civil right activists who took a form of action to obtain equal rights amongst their society. The way they handled nonviolent situations was by taking a non direct action. Also the sacrifice that they had to go through whether it had been by being passive resistance or simply by injustice laws that had to be broken. Gandhi developed his theory of Satyagraha (“soul force”), which implicates social justice through love as well as suffering the consequences. Having to read two distinct stories at distinct time they both manage to have something in common which is CHANGE. We end with MLK- demanding that the actions for equal rights will be...
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...Thomas Jefferson had once said “To secure these rights,Governments are instituted among men,deriving their just power from the consent of the governed”.In the Quote,Jefferson is explaining that,the power of the Government is being held by the same people,and to secure the rights we want,we have different people who are not part of the Government that can help us to have the rights that is best for our country. The argument in this essay will be about Civil Disobedience,now Civil Disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines,as a peaceful form of political protest.This essay will include great examples about Civil Disobedience such as,”The Letter From Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King,”The Declaration...
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...philosopher from Prussia. He was born in 1844 and passed away at age 55 in Germany. Nietzsche was very well educated. He studied Theology at the University of Bonn and eventually earned his doctorate from the University of Leipzig. For ten years he served as chair of classical philology at Basel in Switzerland. My focus is going to be on his writing, Beyond Good and Evil. It is important to note for the analysis of this book that Nietzsche came from a materialist, or atheist background. In Beyond Good and Evil, the ethical model he promotes is one that is driven by power. The other writing I will look at is Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail. Like Nietzsche, King was also very sophisticated....
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...of writing that appeal to the seat of emotion, reason and ethnic. The strategy pays dividends to the extent that it calls to these three aspects of life to address issues. Scholars and majority writers in their scholarly and oratorical works have relied so much on the use of the rhetorical style of writing to construct pathos logos and ethos. “Letter from Birmingham Jail," by Martin Luther King Jr (Francisco, 23) is a profound example of this style at play. The three ideologies independently can survive any intellectual argument; they don’t have to work in tandem. This paper seeks to decipher the effect of using the rhetorical strategy to address racial injustice, and diverse religious ideology. Martin Luther employs the use of pathos and logos to create such a strong emotional appeal. To some extent, all human beings are caught in the inescapable network of mutuality. Martin Luther contends that whatever affects one person directly affect another indirectly. Martin Luther King Jr. in a sense achieves a deep sense of pathos by appealing to the logos. The emotional stylistic appeals clearly put the issues on steroids by drawing from particular aspects that cut across geographical location. The racial injustice is a threat to justice everywhere, including and not limited to Asia and Africa. Historically the world was on the verge of intellectual, emotional and radical forces that were about to shape the world economic and political landscape. The interpretation of laws governing...
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...Social Injustices Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther king both stood up and fought against social injustices. Thoreau wrote his essay “Civil Disobedience” to express his views on the role of government. Thoreau also expressed his ideas about what men should do to stand up to a government that sought to suppress its citizens. King started reading Thoreau during his school years and adopted his non-violent ways of protest. He molded his actions around Thoreau’s essay and fought for equal rights for the African American community. Both authors sought peaceful means to protest against things they deemed social injustices. In Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and King’s “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” they present the problems with current societies and a peaceful way to bring those problems to the forefront. Thoreau and King both show their selflessness when they sacrificed their personal freedom for an issue. Thoreau was thrown in jail for not paying a poll tax. He refused to pay the tax because; he did not support slavery and the Mexican America war. Although Thoreau’s views in “Civil Disobedience” were his own and he was not trying to push them on anyone, they obviously had a profound impact on Martin Luther King. Writer Michael Mink of Investors Business Daily said this about King, “He was fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, he was so deeply moved that he reread the work several times. King became convinced that noncooperation with evil...
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