What is the claim that Martin Luther King, Jr. is making in "Letter from Birmingham Jail"? What is the most effective appeal that he uses to prove that claim? Provide at least 2 examples of his use of this appeal and explain what effect each example would have on the audience.

In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. appeals to pure reason by asking his fellow religious brethren to act upon their own faith. King suggests faith and reason are more than compatible: faith requires reason and reason requires faith.
He addresses his letter to fellow leaders and clergymen, urging them to offer him the same support as the “noble souls from the ranks of organized religion...[who] have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.” King recognizes that faith is necessary in order to succeed in the battle against racism, but he doesn’t stop there. Rather, he lays out a well-organized and systematically reasoned argument that appeals to logic, or common sense, by making the vital distinction between just laws and unjust laws.
King establishes a firm dividing line between laws that should be obeyed and laws that should be broken: “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust....segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.” The injustice thwarts the dynamic between different races, creating an inflated imbalance that’s detrimental to the human spirit because “[segregation] gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.”
King’s central belief is directly, and meaningfully, aligned with the Catholic Intellectual Tradition claim that one must be dedicated to justice for all people in order to promote and preserve the common good. During a time when African-Americans were struggling to earn basic human rights, King found the perfect language to point out the source of the widespread injustice in America. He implored believers to put their faith to use through action and encouraged them to rely on their own reason to better understand why immediate non-violent action was compulsory.

One of the claims that Dr. King makes in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is that it is time to take action against the oppression of African American people and that his nonviolent methods of protest are justified. He states, "We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights" (you can cite pages from your text using MLA format).
The appeal that he uses to make this claim is mainly pathos, or an appeal to the reader's emotions. For example, he writes that African Americans can't wait to mount their protests because "you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim." He makes this appeal more immediate and directed towards his audience by addressing them as "you," and this appeal would likely have provoked the pity of his audience. He also includes the following appeal:

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, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people.

This example, also an appeal to pathos, or emotion, is particularly wrenching, as it involves the disappointment of an innocent child who can not go to an amusement park because of the color of her skin. He places the reader in the position of being the parent of a child who is denied having fun because of her skin color. Perhaps you can find other appeals simiilar to the above in his letter.