Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Letter From Birmingham Jail
The Letter From Birmingham Jail written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 16, 1963, is (and was) more than a mere response to questions posed by eight members of the clergy, all of them Caucasian in ethnicity. The letter in fact was a kind of manifesto for basic human rights under the Constitution of the United States. It is thought of today by many scholars - with perfect validation - as the most powerful justification, explanation, and motivation for the Civil Rights Movement. Although King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., is probably more well-known (and offered more soaring rhetoric, more memorable lines), it cannot compare to the point-by-point scholarship and theological craftsmanship that went into King's Letter From Birmingham Jail (hereafter referred to as Letter).Indeed, the Letter is viewed today as far more than an answer to questions posed by members of the Alabama clergy, or as a reasoned response to Alabama Governor George Wallace's militant 1963 pronouncement at his inauguration that he would defy federal law and not permit integration of public schools. In the Letter, King explains to the clergymen why, as "an outsider coming in," he made the decision to take part in the Birmingham demon
"This is a very strong attack on the church by King through his Letter. "As to the social and racial injustices King is speaking of, a bit of background into conditions in the South - and specifically, in Alabama - is worthy of some space in this paper. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana blacks were blocked from voting, and white segregationist's mob actions against blacks were commonplace. Still, King asks for forgiveness if anything he has said "overstates the truth," or "indicates an unreasonable impatience. Between the years 1937 and 1947, the Times' story continued, "there have been 273 prevented lynchings, against forty-three cases in which a mob succeeded" in hanging black men in the South. " The news media had often covered the very Christian-themed issues that King alluded to: On July 7, 1959, the New York Times' headline read "Birmingham Resists Church Integration: Few White Ministers Have Taken a Stand on Race. " As harsh as that statement was, King wasn't through with the clergy; "In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. He protests as much as he does put forward positive pronouncements. "In conclusion, it could be said that what King did from his jail cell was not at all an attempt to enlist white clergy in his cause, nor was it a reaching out in brotherhood to men who, like himself, had chosen to be spokesmen for the word of God. King in the Letter "constructs a theological debate over the morality of just and unjust laws," and then King rejects unjust laws and through his sharp narrative he condemns the south's "white clergy for upholding them and by extension a racist and immoral society. " He remembers looking at the "beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward," and he recalled asking himself "over and over.
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