A Few More Thoughts on King

I have a few comments and observations from my reading of the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" this afternoon.

Martin Luther King was a brilliant man, and a brilliant strategist. He was also ruthless, in his own way, and was more than willing to use any means at his disposal to ensure that justice was achieved. While he was an outspoken opponent of violence, that didn't stop him from using the violent factions of the civil rights movement as a tool of persuasion and negotiation. For example, in the "Letter," he writes that "I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare." [Emphasis is mine.] That man knew how to make a point.

In this way, King was able to use the extremism of the Black Nationalist movement to gain the cooperation and support of more moderate groups. King successfully painted a picture of even greater tensions and conflict if the establishment failed to act. By doing so, he managed to generate the very sense of urgency that clergymen such as those who composed "A Call for Unity" otherwise lacked.

King was also a great orator. He was skilled in the art of persuasion, and this too is on display in the "Letter." For example, several elements of King's classical education are apparent in his writing. In several places throughout the letter, he borrows techniques from great orators of the past. For example, during his trial, Socrates used a rhetorical technique known as apophasis (also called praeteritio, in which the speaker makes a point by denying that he or she is making that point) when he said that he wouldn't attempt to use his family to gain pity, while at the same time subtly describing in some detail his young sons. Apophasis was also a technique favored by the great orator Cicero, who during his indictment of Catiline said "shortly after you had made room for a new bride by murdering your former wife, did you not compound this deed with yet another crime that defies belief? I do not dwell on this and readily allow it to be glossed over in silence".

In his letter, King uses a sort of modified form of apophasis when he says that "The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history." Functionally, Martin Luther King told moderate whites "it's not a threat, it's a promise," while at the same time denying that he was making a threat at all.

As another example of King's rhetorical skill, when he discusses the label of "extremist" he takes a term which would otherwise be used to dismiss the civil rights movement as unreasonable, even dangerous, and turns it into a positive, saying "though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: [...] Was not Amos an extremist for justice: [...] Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: [...] Was not Martin Luther an extremist: [...] And Abraham Lincoln: [...] And Thomas Jefferson: [...] ."

By the way, the technique of using anaphora (through the repetition of the phrasing "was not ___ an extremist for ___") to systematically validate a label or opinion is fairly iconic. The TV show "The West Wing," for example, strongly recalls King when fictional presidential candidate Matt Santos uses almost the exact same technique to respond to being labeled a liberal (see http://www.whysanity.net/monos/westwing6.html for the quotation and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVdz985HTJk for the video).