Prompt #2

In the letter from Birmingham jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. he uses both religion and patriotism to try and explain to the clergymen on why he is in Birmingham. He tries to emphasize them both but he uses religion more often than patriotism to try and explain to them because he wants to appeal to their moral values more than the law. He uses this to explain to them about his predicament because at the time what he was doing was against what society thought to be patriotic. At the time they thought that segregation was a patriotic thing. His first use of appealing to their religious beliefs is when he says in paragraph 4 that he has to correct was is going on by saying that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He is saying that he knows he was parading without a permit but he was not brought to jail because of that. Dr. king says that he was brought to jail because the government wants to preserve the injustice that has been brought to the society.

  He also starts to begin to explain about just and unjust laws and how to determine the differences to the clergymen. He uses these examples to appeal to their religion because he says that just laws are something that goes against what God believes to be right. This is very effective because these people he is writing to are people of the church and they believe in doing what is right to god so for Dr. King to say that segregation is an unjust

Rodriguez pg. 2

law and goes against how God intended mankind to live appeals to these particular individuals better than if Dr. King were to say that his act was more patriotic. This is true because the history of the Christians involves civil disobedience and Dr. King says that he is doing the same thing as some of the prophets as he says “Of Course this is nothing new with this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral value was involved” (Dr. King ¶ 17).

Another way he tries to appeal to the men who wrote to him is as a patriotic way he says that even though something is legal it doesn’t mean it is patriotic. He says to the man in paragraph 6 that they took the legal steps for their case and tried to do it the patriotic way but the courts would not look at their case. He says that the court kept postponing their date on the case. Dr. King told the men that his people were tired of waiting for them and they took action and even though he did break the law of parading without a permit the real reason he was put in the jail was to preserve the segregation in America.

In the Letter from Birmingham Jail Dr. King appeals to the clergymen’s political and religious side. In the end the on that was more affective was the appeal to their religion. This was a better way of explaining to the men because in the Christian religion they did practice civil disobedience. So appealing to their religion would be more effective. Even though both were effective at proving Dr. King’s point emphasizing the religion was more effective.