Martin luther kings letter from birmingham jail - Essay Example

The passage chosen for this discussion is given in quotations below. This passage is a classic example of the manifestation of Dr. King’s charisma and eloquence. It also demonstrates some of the tools of rhetoric that King used in his speeches and writings that have a powerful effect on the listener. Some key sentences from the following passage will be taken for deeper analysis: “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 jet like 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 never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." But ………………………….when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy" (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 haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobody-ness"—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience”. The very first sentence demonstrates King’s employment of a historical perspective to current political events. Here, the