Letter From Birmingham Jail

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-book review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. “Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and 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. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid” (Paragraph 3). Which literary term does King use in this quote to describe the nature of his work?

A) Alliteration

B) Anaphora

C) Allusion

D) Allegory

2. With which of the following sentences would King’s views align most closely?

A) The fight for justice concerns only the actions of Black Americans.

B) Actions affect all individuals, whether directly or indirectly.

C) It is the nature of communities to remain segregated.

D) Outsiders are a natural development in the fight for justice.

3. Which of the following literary terms does King use in Paragraph 15 as he describes the problem with waiting for rights?

A) Anaphora

B) Palindrome

C) Allegory

D) Personification

4. In Paragraph 22, King references different types of “civil disobedience.” Which famous author is also associated with this term?