Analysis Of Dr. Martin Luther Kings Letter From The Birmingham City Jail

In Dr. Martin Luther Kings Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, King speaks about the society he, and all other African Americans are living in. He starts to talk about just and unjust laws, stating the difference between the two “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” Most people at the time thought that if a law is in place, it is for the better of society. The idea that the brutality the police officers are inflicting on civilians who fight against systemic racism is a way to keep order, adds to Kings problems with the current state of society. He is fighting against the ‘white moderate’, who are the white people who, although, are

With this ideal in mind, he brings up the notion that with unjust laws, they are meant to be broken if the person breaking them has accepted the consequences or if breaking the law is for the bettering of society. King believed that if you break a law that your conscience deemed unjust and accept the punishment in order to make people think about the injustice that the law set in place, you have the highest respect for the law. As stated in the prior paragraph, King refers to the voting system in the state of Alabama and how it is corrupt. The way laws go about being voted upon, make them unjust, and therefore set a baseline for them to be broken. Towards the end of the passage, King brings to light how the police officers were commended for their actions of keeping the protesters in order and preventing violence. The white community believed that all laws were just, because they did not negatively affect their lives, so the black community speaking out and protesting against them were seen as obscene. This point of view demonstrates Kings beliefs that unjust laws are breakable, because while the white community in Alabama saw their protests as obscene and unneeded, the rest of the country tuned in to watch everything unfold. Those who were on the outside looking in felt sympathy for the black community, and agreed that change was needed in the South. Further in the letter, King uses a variation of “the ends justify the means” when he states that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends, and that it is wrong to use moral means to attain immoral ends. These statements show that King realizes how the system is working against him and his fellow black Americans. By police officers treating black protestors violently, they are using what the white community has