Rhetoric I Martin Luther King Jr.'s brilliant dissertation, 'Letter from Birmingham Jail', details injustice, segregation, and inequality in Birmingham, Alabama, 'probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States' (6.344). King's argumentative passages persuade the reader, and add credibility to his vehement and vivid discourse. Schemes and tropes are among the oratorical devices which King uses to communicate with his audience, and stir emotional response. The numerous figures of speech augment the clarity, liveliness, …showed first 75 words of 681 total…

…showed last 75 words of 681 total…white, who stood up for what is best in the American Dream. Judeo-Christian values sacred to these Negro Southerners were the cornerstones of their commitment for freedom and democracy for all. Martin Luther King, as well as all Negroes who suffered and endured affliction, will be revered for bringing our nation back to the ideals of democracy which were established by our founding fathers in their formation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.