"Letter From Birmingham Jail"

     In this week's blog post, I have decided to my article on Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail". The speaker is of course, Martin Luther King Jr. and the purpose of this letter to inform the audience, which were the writers of a newspaper article, and to also persuade and explain to them why the article they have written is misleading and utterly wrong. Another reason he wrote this letter was to meet with the writers personally and this shows that Martin Luther King Jr. sees them as equals. He wrote his entire letter from jail and mentions that it is longer since he is in jail. The occasion is April 16, 1963 in Birmingham Jail and the subject is about civil rights and freedom. Throughout his letter, Martin Luther King Jr. kept his tone calm and encouraging, but in the end he became more emotional. In writing his letter, he also has many repetitions, restatements, and parallelism, such as "we were here..." and "before the pilgrim...". He also makes an allusion towards the Declaration of Independence and the Plymouth.
     The main reason why he wrote this letter was because a newspaper had written an article about the Whites attacking the Blacks and basically showing that they are supporting what is wrong, instead of what is right. Martin Luther King Jr. also wrote a paradox about this attack, which was that the police are using violence to gain social justice and in other towns there is nonviolence because there is segregation. This is also considered emotional persuasive because he influences the reader. He especially influences the reader by his efforts under circumstances. Even though he is in jail, he is still fighting for civil rights when he could easily not do anything. One other important aspect of his letter is that, Martin Luther King Jr. says that they will reach freedom, its only a matter if time and he is confident that one day there will be freedom. He starts his letter with logos and ends it with pathos.