Literary Analysis: Letter from Birmingham Jail
" ... there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience." While jailed for civil disobedience, Dr. King addressed the concept of laws, specifically differentiating them from objective morality and genuine justice. Laws are mere creations of men, and therefore, are reflective of the best and worst human impulses, opinions, prejudices, and acts selfishness. According to Dr. King, human history is replete with examples of resistance on the part of individuals and of oppressed classes of individuals to existing laws that were decidedly unjust by any objective measure of fairness, justice, and morality in human life.
"We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Facts Presented in Support of Thesis:"Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. "Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. King provides facts capable of easily being established and corroborated by public records. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. This is a fundamental refutation of the much more common perception that mere failure to strive for positive changes in society is far removed on the moral scale from actively perpetuating those conditions directly. King:"Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. The general principle is that laws must embody justice and higher respect is owed to the duty to ensure that formal laws are, in fact, just than to any duty to obey fundamentally unjust laws. At fist I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws. Throughout the war years, laws enacted by Nazi authorities in Germany and in other formerly sovereign nations conquered and occupied by the Nazis that prohibiting sheltering a Jew hiding from state-mandated execution.
Common topics in this essay:
Dr King,
Klux Klanner,
Dr King's,
dr king,
African Americans,
Inferences Assumptions,
Intended Meaning,
Europe Locally,
Opinions Expressed,
King Sometimes,
Meshach Abednego,
unjust laws,
civil disobedience,
social justice,
social injustice,
dr king's,
peaceful protest,
white moderate,
according dr,
according dr king,
hoped white moderate,
hoped white,
passage dr king,
dr king provides,
willingness accept unjust,
|
Acceptance Essays
