The Rhetoric Language of Martin Luther King’s Letters and Speeches

Excerpts from the Paper

The Rhetoric Language of Martin Luther King’s Letters and Speeches
Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister that harnessed the theological power of Christianity in order to evoke protest, civil disobedience, and passive resistance to racism in the Deep South. While the Civil rights Era is often defined as a politically charged era in which racism played a vital part in the transformation of American values in race relations in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the rhetoric language of Martin Luther King’s letters and speeches defines the theological foundation of his inspiration for equality. With writings such as a “Letter from Birmingham” and his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace prize of 1964, King often relied heavily on the...

.....s the specific uses of theological rhetoric that King applies to his writing and speech styles to evoke unity amongst African Americans in a hostile white political environment. In this context, King uses religious morality to a way to galvanize religious sentiment amongst non-racist whites and African Americans because of the hypocritical claims of “Christian values” as a white hegemonic majority norm in Southern culture.
Photo of King in the Birmingham jail with his letters:
This photo shows King in the Birmingham jail with this writings and readings in front of him. The forlorn look of despair on his face reveals the institutional racism that he seeks to undermine through the theological rhetoric found in “A Letter from Birmingham Jail.”