Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr. opens the letter to his fellow clergymen by explaining his reasons to be in Birmingham, mentioning his invitation and also assert that given the situation in this area, he needed to be there. He also makes a point of the fact that he doesn't normally respond to criticism due to his busy life, but that he feels that his audience would listen because of their sincerity and willingness to listen. He tells his audience that injustice will not disappear if it is ignored, and that taking action against injustice does not bring violence, since it is the oppressors that commit the violence in spite of the oppressed. He goes on to list the steps of a nonviolent campaign, to show that his protests have not been spontaneous but carefully planned, and brings up the argument questioning his action, ruling it out. "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed," he argues. He emphasizes on the issue that blacks have been waiting and told to wait to take action for the "right time", thus delaying action by most people who believe this statement. Martin Luther King Jr. argues that the main issue regarding the lack of direct action nee
sees his disappointments as not important, since he believes that his ends will be achieved with or without the church's help, because "the goal of America is freedom. ) who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible devil. MLK defends the clergymen's attack on his activity in Birmingham by comparing his nonviolent protests to those of other black activists' groups, such as the Nation of Islam and other Black Nationalist groups, which are violent in nature. He supports civil disobedience in respect to unjust laws in America that support segregation and inequality, giving examples of civil disobedience in history, like Christians in the Roman Empire who were tortured and eaten by lions in public display. His other disappointment is the church, due to the fact that the church does not use its power to bring segregation and racism to an end. "MLK responds to the clergy who called him an extremist by bringing up historical figures that would have been qualified as extremists by their contemporaries, such as Jesus and Lincoln, who fought for different extreme ways of thinking of their time. He defines a just law as a "manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of god, that is to say that it upholds people's "sameness" and does not discriminate among humans. ded for the civil rights movement to be completely and quickly effective is this; people waiting for the time to be right.
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Acceptance Essays
