Insights of Letter from Birmingham Jail
This letter is directed to various
clergymen whom had critiqued the actions of Martin Luther King Jr and his
organization (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) (http://nationalsclc.org/) in various protest
realized in Birmingham, Alabama. Luther King is upset by those remarks and
responded to them in this letter while he was in the jail of Birmingham, as
consequence of the protest. Birmingham is a city where the segregation problem
had exceeded the limits, the black community in Birmingham had suffered an
atrocious treatment and had lived unspeakable moments. This was the reason of
the engaging of a nonviolent procedure by Luther King and his organization to
resolve the situation in the city. It is quite interesting the maturity and
carefulness implemented by Martin Luther King and his fellows to achieve their
goal with a nonviolent method. First, they examined and collected real facts
that determine racial injustices. Secondly, they searched for negotiations with
the white business leaders of the place. Then, before they began to protest,
they underwent into a self-purification stage in which they were prepared to
work nonviolently despite anything. Finally, they proceed to a direct protest.
The protocol used was an excellent evidence of an actual nonviolent protest. It
must had been extremely hard to respond in a nonviolent way in that kind of
environment. I wouldn’t take a pacific stance, I would probably had gotten into
physical contact and altered.
History and painful experiences had taught
us the oppressor never gives that freedom, it should be demanded by the
oppressed. Is for this reason that black people had searched for many ways to
end with segregation. The desire to end with the exclusion was kind of urgent
for many Afro-Americans because they were tired of being treated like something
inferior to the white people. It was not time to wait for a miracle or to let
time pass by while still expecting a change, it was just time to act. Someone
said that they shouldn’t counter attack the segregation problem and they should
wait. Probably they didn’t suffer directly the effects of the seclusion or they
just adjusted to the unfair treatment and didn’t do anything to improve. For
Luther King the wait was turned into a never. It must be hard see your friends
or family members getting kicked, cursed, and/or mistreated by white people and
even the policemen. Explaining to the youngsters why they can’t go to play or
to any place like the white people must be an uncomfortable circumstance.
Things like these made impossible to maintain of patient mind set, the black
people whom wanted to have a normal life and live like any other American
citizen, without being mistreated and secluded.
Another of my insights is the
understanding of the two types of laws. In 1954, the Supreme Court took the
decision of outlawing segregation in public schools, causing a huge confusion
for some black people because this will be breaking other laws. According to
Martin Luther King the answer to this confusion is that exist two types of
laws, the just and the unjust. The difference between both types is that one is
moral, and the unjust isn’t moral. Sometimes a law is just on it meaning but
isn’t in the application. An example presented in the studied text is that Dr.
King have been arrested on a charge of parading without permit, which doesn’t
have anything bad, but is turned unjust when it is used to maintain segregation
and to deny citizens their privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
Also, I learnt in this reading that the
segregation problem had a few ideologies, two of them search for freedom and
the other doesn’t fight for anything. I said that it doesn’t fight for anything
because they were so drained, and they were forced to adjust to the situation.
Another option of this ideology was that they were part of the middle-class
negroes and they had education, economic security or they profited by
segregation. The other two ideologies look for a stop to the segregation but
with different methods. One of them was a force of bitterness and hatred, they
were kind of violent black nationalist groups. The best-known group was the
Elijah Muhammad Muslim movement. The other was the movement with a nonviolent
method, which was principally leaded by Marin Luther King Jr.
Finally, my last insight of this reading
was the fact that the white church and its leadership didn’t gave the support
that was expected from a church. There were a few exceptions of white churches
that support the nonviolent movements from part of the black people, but it was
just a few of churches that did support the movement. Some ministers saw the
situation as social issue which wasn’t real their concern. For me is crazy
because Christianity teach us to love each other and respect us. Also, I see it
contradictory because in the sexual preference theme they get involved but in
the racial theme they don’t. Clearly there were many white churches that were
racist and doesn’t want to help any black movement. The members of the white
churches prefer to portray a racist instead of portraying a good Christians.
Maybe some of them feared being segregated too at the time of support or help
any black movement.
Work cited
Luther King Jr, Martin. Class Assignment. Letter from Birmingham Jail.
UPRRP January 2018.
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