After the Birmingham, Alabama newspaper published "The Public Statement," by Eight Alabama Clergymen " calling Martin Luther King's activities "unwise and untimely, " King wrote a response back from jail arguing each point the clergymen had made. In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail ", King points out that he is not an outsider since the people of Birmingham invited him and that since they are all within the United States, nobody should even be considered an outsider (King 2). Dr. King was able to reach out to millions upon millions of people with his letter. Despite of having addressed it to his "dear fellow clergymen" (173), King was able to bring his writing to the attention of the general white public, white supremacists, black nationalists, and many others. King direct this to his audience, to convince them that what the white man is doing is unjust. He is telling them not only that he was invited to Alabama, but also that the laws are unjust and he has to do or say something about it. He wanted to persuade people that there were not justice in Alabama. To argue his points in the letter, King uses more than three rhetorical strategies, such as ethos, pathos, logos, metaphors, and intertextuality to convince his audience of his argument. Among these strategies, King uses the logos strategy most completely in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail " because it is used many times by King, because the logic and prove behind the arguments makes it more persuasive, and because it directly criticizes the points the clergymen made in their public proclamation.
This letter is written by Martin Luther King Jr. addresses his letter to his fellow Clergyman, but he is really talking to everyone. In this letter he talks about many different things. He basically talks about morals and justice. He tells us that we need to be extreme in our thinking and in our actions. We need to protect the rights of all people.
