Ethos Pathos Logos in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

“Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.”

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.SL.9-10.3

" . . . when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.RI.9-10.8

" . . . and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid."

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

". . . when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; . . . "

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CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

"My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely."...Since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable in terms."

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.SL.9-10.3

"I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in."...I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here."

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.SL.9-10.3

“The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue

rather than dialogue."

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

" . . . when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' and 'colored'; and your wife and mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs.' . . ."

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CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.SL.9-10.3

"I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.' But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity . . ."

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CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

CCSS.SL.9-10.3

". . . when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society . . ."

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CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.6

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

CCSS.SL.9-10.3