To communicate effectively, ethos is never enough. People respond to emotions and personality as well. In the following two quotes, Dr. King's vivid details invite readers to experience the daily lives of African Americans under the laws of segregation. Through the explicit experience offered in his language, readers experience the details and therefore feel the emotions caused by segregation that have led Dr. King to protest. "But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim", "…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".
Metaphorical use of language invites readers to make associative leaps between certain common experiences and others that are less known. The common experience and its associated emotions are then transferred to the experience that is outside the other's realm of experience.
In concluding his letter, Dr. King uses an extended metaphor of a rainstorm to move readers through the emotions of the "dark clouds of racial prejudice," "deep fog of misunderstanding" and "fear-drenched communities" to the hopefulness that he feels is possible through non-violent demonstration in "the radiant stars of love and brotherhood" that in some not too distant future will "shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty". Through the association of the ending of a rainstorm with the ending of segregated life, Dr. King hopes white people will begin to glimpse the emotional experience of escaping the horrors and pains of segregation.
Repetitive language can also make an emotional appeal, emphasizing points as if with the background of a beating drum. Dr. King builds both emotional momentum and power through his repetitive words and sentence structure in "Was not Jesus an extremist," "Was not Amos an extremist," "Was not Paul an extremist," etc.
In making an appeal to logic, as with the personal essay, giving details first allows a reader to understand more clearly statements of reasoning and feelings. In his response to the patience requested by white ministers, Dr. King first supplies the everyday details of African American life: "vicious mobs lynching your mothers and fathers" and "drowning your brothers and sisters," "hate-filled policemen cursing, kicking and even killing your black brothers and sisters," six-year-old daughters unable to go to public amusement parks, and African Americans "humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' and 'colored'". After these details, the accumulation of their experience and accompanying feelings, when Dr. King states, "then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait", the logic of no longer waiting seems clear and an impossibility. The reader has vividly felt and experienced the horrors of segregation.
Logos and pathos are not always separate but many times function together. When Dr. King states, "everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything that Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal'", he appeals to both senses. Dr. King, to support his reasoning that a legal act does not necessitate a just one, uses the historical example of Adolf Hitler to try to set clear the logic of his position. By comparing the situation of Hungarian freedom fighters, Dr. King hopes that the reasoning for his position will be seen, thereby convincing readers that his actions are logical, appropriate and righteous. However, his comparison of his situation to that of Hungarian freedom fighters also carries an emotional appeal in that within the word 'Adolf Hitler' comes the details of Hitler's atrocities of which we are all aware. The emotions associated with Hitler's atrocities are transferred to segregation. In using this example from history to try to clarify the reasoning of his position, Dr. King appeals both to our logic and our emotions.
Dr. King appeals to our logic when he gives the reasoning for his statement "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice". His reasoning includes the fact that the white moderate does not seem to recognize "that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice," that the tension in the South is there due to segregation, that the tension will erupt into violence if it is not the source of a transition to equality, and that to ask Negroes to "passively accept" the indignities of segregation is to deny them their "dignity and worth" as a human being.
Another type of appeal to logic is more implicit. It asks readers to see into the presented facts. In quoting an elderly black woman, "My feets is tired but my soul is at rest", Dr. King makes such an appeal. He mentions that her statement is grammatically incorrect, emphasizing her lack of education and his awareness of such. Why draw attention to this fact? To point out that even the uneducated know and sense the magnitude of the injustice of segregation. In other words, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the inequity of the current situation.
