Letter from Birmingham Jail

In April of 1963 Civil Rights Activist Dr. Martin Luther King wrote an open letter to who ever was willing to read it after being arrested for being apart of the Birmingham campaign. The letter was a response to a letter that had recently run in a local newspaper, which had claimed that the protests were "unwise and untimely". King deliberately wrote his letter for a national audience. The letter reveals King's strength as a rhetorician and his knowledge. At the time it gave a strong well respected voice that jumbled the movement.


"Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful."

- Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail 

King is using logos when he says, "Any law that uplifts human spirit is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." King is using logos to determine whether a law is just or unjust. Another claim in this paragraph is where King says, "Hence, segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful." Again, this is using logic and reason to show that segregating people on account of their skin color is "wrong and sinful." In both of his claims, he is saying because of this, it is this. He is using logic and reason to see why things are wrong and bad. The second claim could also be appeal of ethos because it deals with ethics and morals as well.