Rhetorical Analysis The “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on 16 April 1963. The letter was a response to a newspaper statement written by clergymen. Martin Luther King’s purpose in writing the letter was to defend the nonviolent strategies that his organization used. Being logical and well put together, the letter has effectively used rhetorical devices such as pathos, logos, and ethos. However, pathos seems to be the most powerful and effectively used rhetorical device in the text. For instance, the King uses pathos in the text to back up his affiliation’s pacifist approaches, convince readers that nonviolence is the best way of handling situations, vividly give a picture of what black Americans