Assigned: Response to Letter From Birmingham Jail

I have read this letter several times for many different classes and each time, it seems as if I learn something new each time. It really is a remarkable piece of writing. In the letter Martian Luther King Jr. is speaking to those who are wondering why he ended up in jail and why he went to jail at the time he did. He is informing the people of his rationale. He is very effective in his writing because of his emotional, logical and credible appeal. This letter was quiet emotional engaging is many parts, but the part I remember most clearly is where he wrote about his children asking him why colored people have less and different rights than the white people. He also writes about family members that have been mistreated. This is a long quote, but I think it is a great example of how he used emotional appeal, " But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and 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 are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait." I am sure these two examples hit the heart-strings of those reading this letter and convinced them that his time in jail is worth it. He also used many allusions to past famous people, such as Socrates, which made him sound very intelligent and philosophical. His logical appeal was also embedded within his words. He gave many reasons as to why he has acted the way he had and backed up each of those reasons. He also addresses many of the questions he thinks the people will ask him. This makes him seem very in-tune to the needs of the people. He also used the derogatory term thats black people are called, probably to elicit more intense feelings from his audience.