Is Martin Luther King's Tone In Letter To Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, where is there a better place to write a long letter than in a jail cell? Optimistic and bitter, Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” inspires the audience to come together to make a change and defends the people involved. King expresses his hope to the nation through his tone, rhetorical appeals, and rhetorical tools. Kings optimistic and bitter tone inspires and defends the audience throughout his letter. Martin begins his letter with optimism about the future for him and his people. King discloses that although not everyone understand his motives, he has “no fear about the outcome” and whishes to change it. This is backed up when king is talking about the people before him and how “out of bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop” without the help of anything huge. He knows that what has happened in the past was wrong but continues to remind everyone how it can change. Hoping “racial prejudice will soon pass away” was kings way of letting the audience know that he still believed in change. Although he was still optimistic about the future of America, he was also bitter of what has happened. The future of the country will be the “old, oppressed batter negro women” who once stood up for what she believed in, but was put down. America is also defined by the young ones who will be “willing to go to jail for consciences sake” and to put their foot down to what is
Rhetorical tools, appeals and tone help shape the way that King has seen and wants to see in the future days to America. King is able to encourage and represent the current body of the black and white people to make a change and stand up for their rights. The letter truly conveys King’s feelings towards how the blacks have been treated and how freedom needs to be achieved by coming together as brother and