Letter from Birmingham Jail

"Letter from Birmingham Jail" is written by Martin Luther King Jr. When all of the arguments King puts forth in both works have the ability to appeal to everyone in some way, the manner in which he shifts his tone and rhetoric many times throughout each text in order to address a specific audience is what makes these documents so power. Since so many of King's arguments are based on emotion and appeal to tradition and culture, it is most useful to look at the ways he uses rhetoric to appeal to certain subsets of his audience. King's letter actually addresses two audiences; the limited and precisely defined group of eight clergymen and a broader and less exactly defined group of intelligent and religious moderates. He uses rhetorical strategies and language that invokes a sense of these men's hypocrisy and once he accomplishes this, the argument for the protests broadens out and his tone shifts and begins to include the larger, presumably agreeing audience. King wrote this letter to the eight clergymen because these men clearly disagree with him and his notion of civil rights and peaceful protest. Therefore, King puts his argument on the same religious and academic level as these eight men claimed to be at, there would be no possibility of refutation since if they were to do so.