On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the famous “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” responding to criticisms leveled against the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. On April 3, 1963, highly organized marches and sit-ins started in Birmingham in protest against racial segregation and racism in the city. These protests were mainly non-violent under the leadership of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). However, King together with other members of the caucus were arrested. While in jail, eight white Alabama clergymen wrote a newspaper article titled “A Call for Unity” condemning King’s nonviolent protests. Therefore, King wrote the letter from jail in response to the criticisms that these fellow clergymen had raised in their article. In the letter, he starts by noting that the clergymen are people of goodwill and acknowledges that perhaps they were genuine in their concerns about nonviolent protests, and this approach sets a reasonable tone for the dialogue. King then addresses the claim that he is an outsider leading protests in Birmingham by noting that he was invited to join his brothers and sisters in the fight against the widespread injustices and racism in Birmingham. The letter outlines various issues that King felt needed to be addressed for the people in the city to get justice and civil rights. In the letter, King uses logos to appeal to logic and ethos to appeal to emotions and respond effectively to the criticisms leveled against his support for nonviolent protests as discussed in this paper.
King uses logos when responding to the claim that he was an outsider coming into Birmingham city to bring chaos. This line of thinking was one of the major issues that the eight clergymen had raised in their newspaper article. Therefore, in a bid to address this issue, King says, “So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” In this case, King uses two reasons to appeal to logic while justifying his presence in the city. First, he argues, he was in Birmingham because he was invited by his fellow brothers. Therefore, he had not “trespassed” or come uninvited; on the contrary, he was in the city as a guest. In the second line, King introduces even a more compelling reason why he is in Birmingham – “because injustice is here”. In this case, his presence in the city should not be questioned because as King goes on to say, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Therefore, injustice in Birmingham meant injustice everywhere else in the US and beyond, and as a champion for human rights, civil liberties, and justice, he was justified to be in the city.
The use of logos as explained in the above passage is highly effective. King seeks to directly address the criticisms against his presence in Birmingham and instead of evading the question, he uses a two-pronged approach to ensure that he is clear on what he says. As such, in the first instance, he uses the logic that under normal circumstances, people are invited to different places and they honor that call by responding and showing up for the invite. This line of thinking is common logic, and his accusers should at least understand the same. In the second instance, King exposes the logic behind his warranted presence in the city, not as an outsider, but as a champion of freedom rights and justice. If there is injustice in Birmingham, he ought to be there, because as a civil rights activist, he becomes part of the city the moment such inhumane acts start taking place. Additionally, in any case, as King posits, “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” Therefore, his presence in Birmingham is justifiable, and the eight clergymen were mistaken to brand King as an outsider.
King also uses ethos in the letter to justify the overwhelming need for nonviolent protests. In their newspaper article, his accusers had agreed that while injustices and racism were rampant in Birmingham, the problem should be solved in the courts by following the due process of law. In response, King says,
But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. Unfortunately, demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
In this case, King applies ethos by emotionally appealing to the clergymen to use the same argument that they deploy in condemning nonviolent protests to understand the underlying causes. In other words, he insinuates that perhaps his accusers should use the same line of thinking and equally reprobate the reasons behind the protests. The Negro community did not rise one day and decide to demonstrate against an equal society that protects the rights of everyone. On the contrary, as King argues, the “white power structure” had pushed the Negroes against the wall and thus these individuals had no alternative but to protest. The courts had failed to address the systemic and structural racial segregation in Birmingham, and it was ludicrous for the clergymen to suggest that the victims of this inhumanity should engage the same courts for redress. This appeal to emotions is effective because it exposes the clergymen’s pretense in professing that they care about the peace of the city without being concerned with the widespread racial segregation.
Therefore, it suffices to argue that King successfully uses logos and ethos to address the criticisms that were leveled against his participation in nonviolent protests in Birmingham. First, he uses logos to prove that the clergymen’s concerns about his presence in the city were unfounded because he was invited and more importantly, he came because injustice prevailed. Additionally, logically, any American cannot be considered an outsider in any region within the country. King also uses ethos to appeal to the emotions of his accusers. He insinuates that they should use the same fervor and arguments applied in their condemnation and understand the real causes underlying the protests. In the process, the clergyman would acknowledge that the nonviolent protests are the last resort for the Negro community because the courts and all other responsible institutions had failed to address the problem of racial segregation in Birmingham.
Work Cited
King, Martin Luther Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Africa Studies Center – University of Pennsylvania, Web.