Analysis: A Letter From Birmingham Jail

Though the Civil Rights Movement continues to spread throughout the world, hatred still lingers and resists by hiding behind law. Fueled by hatred, privileged communities and law enforcers express violence against innocents, but are protected by their superiors. The injustices committed against the minorities are voiced by activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Desmond Tutu. Similarly, these famous figures worked peacefully to start revolutions by negotiating with the oppressors who have implicated injustice upon the oppressed.
Throughout “A Letter From Birmingham Jail,” King explained why demonstrations were necessary by explaining the four steps in any nonviolent campaign “(1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices

are alive, (2) negotiation, (3) self-purification, and (4) direct action” (King 427). It was clear that there were many injustices in Birmingham similar to Apartheid in South Africa as described by Desmond Tutu as “a gross abuse of human rights” (451). Thus, the first step is met. When negotiating was found to not be effective in Birmingham, King sought to increase the tension between the oppressors and the oppressed by peacefully protesting, “it seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (King 428). Self-purification is realizing that hatred and violence cannot be a means to obtain peace. The demonstrators peacefully protested because violence would not have eased any tension in their relationship with their oppressors. Comparatively, those who seeked change in South Africa needed to accept that neither the Nuremberg or National Amnesia methods were effective in facilitating peace.
Finally, direct action needed to be taken. King and his supporters peacefully protested by demonstrating in Birmingham and eventually Washington D.C. to spread the news across America and eventually the rest of the world. His actions and defiance set the Civil Rights movement into motion, a momentum that could be coined a revolution. The people in South Africa “rejected the two extremes and opted for a “third way,” a compromise,” in order to calm the violence and hatred that seemed to possess both sides of the hidden war (Tutu 458). The compromise that may have ended an era of violence.