Letter of Martin Luther King from a Birmingham Jail - Essay Example

?In response to a ment made by an Alabama clergyman, Martin Luther King wrote what is known as The Letter from a Birmingham Jail. This letter was about the segregation that King has opposed. It was a letter that clearly illustrated his cause and why his cause was a just cause. Segregation of black men was very evident during his time. It was one of the major instigators of violence against colored people. The letter was a call, not only to the government, but also to the people to look at the impact of segregation, discrimination and oppression of black men. It was written with emphasis on parallelism between the current issues and what has happened with great historical events, such as the oppression of Jesus Christ during his time. The success of the letter was not because it was a clear argument opposing segregation, rather its success came from how it was written, evoking emotions through facts around the issue. The discrimination of black men has been very evident in Birmingham. King led a nonviolent protest against it and was responded with violence. He used the letter to open the eyes of the white men and to pressure them from facing the issue rather than delaying the needed conversation between the people and the government. The letter was well-structured, first declaring the reasons he was writing it down to his call for action. It did not jump from one point to another, rather it transitions from one justification to another. It did not contain a simple story of what was happening, rather it made the reader feel what was happening during the time. By using a particular technique, the use of pathos, King was able to reach out to people, even until this time, and accept the badly needed call for recognition of the issue of segregation and discrimination. His letter outlined what was happening and not only that, he also prepared the reader of the actions that should be done to improve the community, and the country as well. As he stated, “we are in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” What happens in Birmingham could happen anywhere else in the world, and the events that transpired would influence not just the people of Alabama, but also everyone else in the world. We are interrelated, one’s actions impacts that of another because we are part of one big social world that has the rules, although different means. At first, King directly answers the clergyman who opposed his movement. And slowly, he shifted from talking directly to the clergyman to talking to a universal audience. This made him capture his audience, aside from the use of images and parallelism that is familiar with most people. He invokes feelings, and this is very effective because he was able to show his audience that what was happening in Birmingham has a similarity with what happened before their time and what happened to other societies. This showed the reader that we are, indeed, tied together. In the first few paragraphs of the letter, King declared that he was in Birmingham because of injustice. There was injustice in segregation and since he led the movement condoning it, he was thrown in jail. He declared then that the move to throw him in jail was an injustice to him just as it was unjust to discriminate black men. King constantly referred to the turn of events in comparison with the biblical characters. With this, he increased the pathos of respect this cause, and it made his cause a more controversial one. He filled his letter with direct images from what happened before, during Jesus’ time, during the Nazi time. This emphasized the commonality of the issue. Although there were different characters, the point was the same, there was segregation, there was discrimination, and there was violence that leads people to react with such anger at the people inflicting the pain. The universal audience of King was able to feel the gravity of such issues because he was successful in bringing to the audience’s conscience the weight of the consequences of segregation. Through his letter, he was able to stress that the victims of segregation were treated with violence when they were calling for attention through nonviolent means. Composing the letter emphasized even more than that even if they were treated with violence, they continue pushing for their cause in nonviolent ways. The letter also opened the audience’s eyes to the impact of segregation to the entire community and to the individuals who were being oppressed. It was indeed hard to answer a child’s questions about the discrimination between whites and blacks. And instead of bringing peace between both sides, the events that the black child sees and experiences splits his perception about who he is. He might develop bitterness against the white men, but he will also feel bitterness about himself. And this becomes a cycle which is hard to break. King wanted to stop this cycle by pressuring the government to find time to analyze their cause. King understood the needs of the society, thus, at first, they continually delayed the active and direct action with hopes that those in position would hear their call. But when they were ignored, with the White House accepting eventually that attending to the civil rights movements were pushed back because their focus was somewhere else, specifically the Cold War (still a form of discrimination, this time of power between two big nations), they pushed for a more direct and more active movement. And during this time, they were treated again with violence, by which the country finally realized that it was too much. King’s letter was effective in touching people’s understanding of the plight of African Americans because he was able to evoke emotions from his audience through concrete images of what was happening in the society. He used examples from the present time and associated them with the more popular events that showed discrimination, like with the biblical characters of Jesus and Paul, and with other events like the Nazi event. It was effective enough that people continued to use his plight as a motivation for pressuring even more for the government to take action about the increasing violence with segregation. The effectiveness of the letter was not just evident in the turn of events after King was imprisoned. It is also effective until now, as the audience even of today learns and understands the turn of events prior to passing the civil rights law. Even until now, King’s letter, was being used to face injustice and oppression that encompasses our society today. It is a continuous battle as King shows in his letter. It has happened before, it has happened in other societies at different times in our history. But what is important is that there are people willing to fight violence with nonviolence to emphasize the harmful effects of discrimination and segregation between one group to another. Read More