Opposite Forces: Freedom for Violence versus Violence for Freedom In the public statement “A Call to Unity”, the Alabama clergymen criticize the civil activists’ goals to stop segregation and racial superiority because the organization is disobeying the protocols that are enforced in Alabama, Birmingham. Specifically, the clergymen target Martin Luther King Jr. as he is the prime player of this civil activist group. The clergymen express their own opinions of his and his supporter’s actions. In a way, the clergymen depress and foolishly mock the civil rights group as their actions are “unwise and untimely”. One of the primary arguments that the clergymen argues in their public statement is that when a group of people defies the law in order to serve their own interests, the actions from these people would create more tension and violence that disrupts the community.
Martin Luther King Jr. responds to their claim in his letter, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. King provides allusions, powerful diction, logos and ethos in order to strengthen his argumentative and persuasive response that it is necessary to fight against unjust laws. He provides various history contents that the law seemly downgrades the African Americans and minorities statuses. He states that African Americans and the other minorities waited more than three-hundred forty years for their constitutional rights. He references the constitution in order to remind the clergymen that the constitution grants all rights to men and that the constitution fails to secure its words described on the document. In addition, King expresses that; “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” King sheds the light of the close minded clergymen that we are all born the same and that we are unavoidably intertwined as human beings. Since the law does not correlate with the constitution, it convinces me that the American society cannot live up to their perceptional identity for “freedom for all men”. If the unjust laws affect one, in this case African Americans and the minorities, then it will affect the unity, justice, and peace for everyone else which ultimately causes a chaotic society that King and the minorities are forced to live in. These unjust laws and the corrupt society fuels King’s ambition to an end these dilemmas. He preached that “…freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”. This logical and powerful statement explains that it is necessary to demand freedom because the oppressor (society) will not grant the minorities their privileges. One cannot continue to allow others to enforce immoral actions and expect them to go along one’s way; it takes action in order to gain one’s wants.
The type of action that King performs is nonviolent direct action, which him and his supporters disobey the law in a peaceful manner without using physical violence and weapons. Even though his supporters use this particular action, they are brutally beaten by police officers. This treatment did not cause King to physically attack but it motives him to continue his policies in order to stop injustice. This exemplifies King’s heroic and graceful character and that he does not have the intention to be cause more chaos. He serves a reasonable purpose to stop the injustice in Birmingham and the nation. King uses allusion, ethos, powerful diction, and logos in order to oppose the clergymen’s harsh and dogmatic beliefs.
