King and Douglas Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King were truly great men and great public speakers, and King was also a hero and martyr to the cause of nonviolent resistance who quite possibly was assassinated by Southern racists with the complicity of the federal government. As far as ethos is concerned, both had immense moral authority, since Douglass was an escaped slave who became the leading black abolitionist in the North, while Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister who led the civil rights movement from 1955-68. Douglass in his Fourth of July speech used more pathos than King in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, graphically describing the terrible conditions of Southern slavery that he had experienced himself. Unlike King, he did not make a moral argument for nonviolence although he strongly denounced the United States for betraying its own principles of liberty and democracy for all. In their rhetorical situations, both were addressing white audiences that they hoped would be sympathetic to their cause, and they had strong criticism for white Christians who had often been indifferent to the situation of blacks and failed to live up to the highest principles of their faith. King also expressed disappointment with white moderates in the South who were simply standing on the sidelines for the most part and letting the racists and segregationists have their way. Douglass expected nothing from the white people of the South, although he was hoping to inspire Northern whites to take stronger action against slavery and the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.

Rhetorical Situations

Martin Luther King's pretext for writing a letter was a response to a group of 'moderate' white clergy who had opposed the demonstrations in Birmingham. More than likely, he understood very well that these men were really not all that moderate and had no real sympathy for cause of black civil rights. It did give him an opportunity to condemn all moderate whites in the South for failing to take a stand against the segregationists...

Even the moderate whites did not want him in the city, called his demonstrations "unwise and untimely" and hoped only that he would leave (King 442).
Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave speaking before a sympathetic white audience in Rochester, New York. Like King, he was attempting to reach out to white moderates or fence-sitters, or at least those willing to give him a hearing. Outright racists, slave owners and their supporters would not have listened to him, of course, while blacks were already all too well aware of their situation. He did not want to completely alienate all whites by simply denouncing America on the Fourth of July, but subtly compared the Founders of the country to abolitionists in that they were also "accounted in their day plotters of mischief, agitators, and rebels, dangerous men," as were King and Douglass in their time (Douglass 554). Douglass made it clear that he fully agreed with their cause and the principles of the American Revolution, for with the Founders "justice, liberty and humanity were 'final', not slavery and oppression," and even George Washington had freed his slaves in his will (Douglass 555).

Argumentative Strategies

King affirmed his deeply-held convictions about Christian nonviolence and social justice, which were regular themes in all his speeches and writings, and regardless of whether the Southern white clergy were listening to him. He was in Birmingham "because injustice is here" and just as Paul "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" (King 443). Like Douglass, King believed that "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed" and "justice too long delayed is justice denied" (King 445). Although the white clergy condemned him for breaking the law, King agreed with Douglass…