The Timing of the Civil Rights Movement: How King Appealed to Kairos

While King's argument is comprised of ethos, pathos, and logos, his most effective method of presenting his argument, besides pathos, is kairos. One example of this is when he declares, "Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was "well timed" according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never." It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights." 

Although much of his argument is laced with frustration of having to wait for centuries to get equal rights, I believe the root is stemming from the fact that the timing for the movement has been long overdue rather than "well timed" as he put it. Certain words such as "centuries" and "for years" add more effect to the fact that the long wait to obtain equal rights was absolutely unacceptable. King also puts special emphasis on the word "wait" as it was one of the many things African Americans can relate to when combatting racism. Even though many African Americans went through different specific things depending on which generation they were born into, "waiting" is probably one of the words they hated hearing when demanding equal rights. His comparison of the waiting acting as a sort of temporary cure like the tranquilizing thalidomide shows that their submission into waiting didn't benefit them at all so it was best to take matters into their own hands. Therefore, he implies that the fight for equal rights would have stopped long ago had they took more of a direct approach.

When compared to kairos of Strange Fruit, King believes that the timing of the movement has been long overdue. Whereas the song sought to expose specifically lynching as an immoral act at the time therefore implying something must be done at the time, King's letter declares that the wait to fight for equal rights was too long. However, I find it interesting that "Strange Fruit" addresses specifically lynching as an immoral act rather than everything that happened to African Americans in the 1930s which is what King does in his letter. 

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