Martin Luther King Rhetorical Analysis

The Civil War, a war that was fought for the freedom of African American slaves, lasted from 1861 to 1865 and about 620,000 men died. Slavery started way back to the early days of colonial America and has been in our constitution that African Americans slaves do not have any rights. Even after the Civil War, many laws were made to discriminate and segregate the blacks and also to restrict them from having the right to vote. Over time many African Americans learned to tolerate segregation and violation of their rights, and some grew a hatred towards white. On the other hand, some blacks did want to fight for their rights like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Thus it lead to the Civil Rights movement. The Civil rights movement erupted in …show more content…
King refers back to certain morals to allow him to relate what he fighting for to a greater extent, which leads him to using anaphora. Throughout his letter, he refers back to morals to show that he is very hopeful in this situation and the issue of racial discrimination will be solved. As stated in the text, “ We will our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.” This is an example of aphorism because he tied back to morals and God, and it allows readers to see his tone as hopeful. By referencing to God, One will see him having faith. Like Gandhi, he also used the idea of morals to promote his protest against British powers because like King, they believed God is supporting them. (ethos) By using aphorism, King was able to use morals to relate and reveal his tone as hopeful because God is on his side. Although his tone was hopeful, his other tone is disappointed because the clergymen and society did not support instead he was seen was being extreme and in order to defend against this judgement he used …show more content…
By comparing; King applies allusions to his letter to give himself credibility and also to fully reveal his tone of disappointment but hopeful. Because part of the audience are clergymen, King alludes to Jesus Christ to allow them to relate and hoping to cause them to support him. From the letter, “The other, Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists... Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much.” From this, readers will be able to infer that Kings is trying to do what Jesus had done and he should have been accepted by others, but he was not; instead many people turn him down, and called him extreme. Thus he was very disappointed, but he still had hope. The quote goes, “They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.” From this quote, one can tell that King now has hope in the situation. Like he said in the quote, because of the hope his supporters gave him and the things they have done for his nonviolent campaign has fully allow King to have hope. Thus, even throughout his letter he portrays a tone of disappointment, he also portrays a tone of hope as

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