Turns out Martin Luther King had a lot on his mind, and that he hadn’t just shown up to the protest to get out of preaching to his congregation for a few days. He had a philosophy and a plan and everything. In Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) Dr. King used the opportunity to bring everybody to light about the protests in Birmingham, what they were about (horrible racism); why the protestors were civilly disobeying (racist) laws and ordinances; why the protestors had truth and justice on their side; and how Dr. King was disappointed with clergymen in the South and so-called white moderates who supposedly believed in his cause but didn’t like the ‘tension’ and unrest caused by the protests. In Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King makes argues for the need of equal rights using appeals to logic, character, and emotion.
‘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. Violent racist terror against African Americans was so bad in Birmingham in the summer of 1963 that the city was being referred to by some locals as Bombingham.King makes a seriously devastating logical argument. The letter describes the political issues that their facing and trying to get through. King also talks about the consequences of the recent elections. King explains why non-violent disobedience is the ideal way to proceed. It refutes each element of the argument put forward by the eight white clergymen, one by one. One of Dr. King’s basic arguments in the ‘Letter’ is that just laws should be followed, and unjust laws should be openly and deliberately disobeyed.
Some of the most emotionally turning moments in ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ come in the parts about the suffering of the African American community. In order for MLK’s argument to make sense, you have to understand why the situation is unjust. So he gives a vivid picture of what Black Americans have to go through in the segregated South. By giving this kind of example, Dr. King is allowing white people a highly relatable glimpse into the pain of the Black community. Martin Luther King’s ethical standing is implied by the way he frames his argument and stakes his claim on a moral truth higher than local laws and ordinances. He out-Christians his Christian critics. He takes America’s highest cultural ideals seriously. He also references a dozen historical heavyweights, from Abraham Lincoln, to Paul of Tarsus (3, 24), to Socrates (9, 17, 21), to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, arguing that he and his followers are in this lineage of freedom fighters, countercultural visionaries, and righteous sufferers of persecution.
In ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’ Dr. King says that we’re all responsible for justice across the nation—and around the world. Justice isn’t defined by mere laws. After all, laws are basically just words written by human beings. When unjust laws get written and people suffer as a result, it’s necessary to protest those laws by non-violently breaking them, even if the resulting unrest and ‘social tension’ is inconvenient for some. The time is always now for justice, and there’s no good reason to wait for the right thing to be done by someone else. We always have to do it ourselves.
