‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ was a letter written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from a solitary confinement cell in Birmingham, Alabama. It is know that portions of the letter were written and smuggled out, one by one, by King’s lawyer on scraps of paper including the prisons toilet paper · Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the problem of racism that had ravaged the United States of America in “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.”. The letter was written on April 16th, , at a time when racial discrimination was causing a lot of damage to the communities in the city. Martin Luther Jr. was the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Congress at · In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. was written from a jail cell responding to religious leaders’ criticism about the Birmingham Campaign. Martin Luther King Jr. uses a spiritual symbol of Apostle Paul and demonstrates the body as a battle field for civil rights. While using the theme of racism which [ ]/5(25)
"Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr. - Alpha Platinum Papers
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, and I would have no time for constructive martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary.
We readily consented, and when martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here.
I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B. Like Paul, martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts.
There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers.
But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation. On the basis of these promises, martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations.
As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay and the national community.
Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.
Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer.
Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking, martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay.
Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation, martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue. One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely.
We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr.
Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.
Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. We have waited for more than years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St.
Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful.
Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.
Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered, martin luther king jr letter from birmingham jail essay. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured? Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application.
For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist.
MLK Letters from Birmingham Jail rhetoric analysis
, time: 14:21Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail - Words | Essay Example
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in longhand the letter which follows. It was his response to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South · September 29, by Essay Writer. On April 19, , Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) wrote a detailed letter from Birmingham Jail in reply to some public releases which were directed at undermining his fight for civil equality. Most of the Martin Luther statements were very rhetorical, whereby he employed Aristotle’s kinds of persuasion to convince his blogger.comted Reading Time: 8 mins “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. 1. What do you think is the best-written paragraph in King’s “Letter? Why? 2. Define “nonviolent direct action (para. 2). What are the four steps in a nonviolent campaign? 3. Do you agree that “law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice” (para. 24)? 4. [ ]
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