Comparison of Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter from...

One of the greatest speakers for the black civil rights movement was Martin Luther King, Jr. Two of his pieces that stand out the most, was the â€Å"Letter from Birmingham Jail† and â€Å"I Have a Dream†. The Letter From Birmingham Jail is exactly that, it’s a letter that King had wrote while he was in jail, to a group of clergy members who disapproved of his action in Birmingham City. I Have a Dream was speech that was delivered in Washington, DC at Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. This speech was written to inspire people to look beyond themselves and also demanded the country unity focusing on equality for all without focusing on the color of their skin; King also wanted the people to take a stand in a nonviolence manner. The Letter from†¦show more content†¦There are also repetition in both pieces, in I Have a Dream, he uses I have a dream, let freedom ring, insufficient funds, and more. But in the Letter from Birmingham Jail, he uses the words when and extremist. A difference is the tone, other rhetorical appeals and the meaning of the two pieces. In the speech â€Å"I Have a Dream†, there are obviously logos, pathos, and ethos, but there are also parallelisms, metaphors, personification, symbolisms, and repetition. King uses personification when he says, â€Å"It is obvious today that America had defaulted on this promissory not insofar as her citizens of color are concerned†¦,† King is using American society as a person who has been done wrong. But also in the quote he uses metaphor and symbolism by saying, â€Å"†¦sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked â€Å"insufficient fund.† â€Å"†¦.the bank of justice is bankrupt... insufficient funds in the great value of opportunity of this nation.† what King is trying to say is that America had given promises to the America Americans, but the promises are empty. Another metaphor in I Have a Dream is, â€Å"In a sense we have come to our Nation’s capital to cash a check†. â€Å"Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Caroline, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this