Civil Disobedience

Letter From Birmingham Jail What rhetorical strategies were applied by Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and which of those was likely most important in influencing the readers of that time? In Birmingham, Ala., in the spring of 1963, King's campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and in hiring practices drew nationwide attention when police turned dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators. King was jailed along with large numbers of his …

…and fought for justice. His “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one of the great documents of the civil rights movement, contains a harrowing and heartbreaking description of the evils of segregation. He galvanized a generation and changed the social fabric of an entire nation . Personal responsibility, self-determination and empowerment for the disenfranchised are today's popular battle cries, as if they are new alternatives to "overcoming," when, in truth, they are vintage principles, long and widely practiced.