Letter From Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King's opening paragraph demonstrates irony and sarcasm. It is sarcastic because he is writing in a jail cell, which is not an ideal place to be when representing a group of people. His dry sarcastic humor comes out as he jokes about not having secretaries in prison,

“If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day...”