Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's Letter from Birmingham Jail

The “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” was a letter written from a solitary confinement cell of Birmingham Jail in Birmingham, Alabama, by Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. It was said that King’s Lawyer had smuggled bits and pieces of the letter which was written on scraps of paper from the jail. The letter was said to have been written on April 16, 1963 during which time terror against African Americans were so bad in Birmingham during the summer, that it was referred to as Bombingham.

Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during his participation in a non-violent anti-segregation march. The reason for arrest was said to be due to the fact that he did not have the proper permit that was required to have a parade. In King’s letter, he recognized and

responded to the 9 criticism’s. Criticism that were made by local religious figures that King has counted on for support, who wrote a Letter to the Editor of a Birmingham newspaper. The letter they had written was criticizing King and his supporters.
Dr. King’s letter accomplishes a lot of important charges. It exposes the misconception that the civil rights for minorities will be developed on their own eventually, the differences between moral and immoral law, the differences between democratic and undemocratic law, and the argument that some extreme situations do call for extreme action.
The 9 criticisms that King responds to are: King has no right as an ‘outsider’ to impede on the City of Birmingham; public affirmation is not a fitting way to get one’s arguments across; negotiation is better than direct action; negro’s should be patient and wait for society to shift towards civil rights; breaking Laws; demanding social justice from society, no matter the peacefulness of the act, provokes violence; direct political action are viewed as a feat of extremism; civil rights and social justice are not pertinent to the church, they should not be dragged into political matters; police are to thank, without them the peaceful direct actions would have turned out to be violent.
In response to the 7th criticism, which states that direct political action, such as the demonstrations in Birmingham, are acts of extremism, King talks about two conflicting points in the Negro community: the self-satisfied and the radical. He then splits-up the self-satisfied, those who are battered by racism and poverty and are too satiated to stick up for themselves, those who agree with the ‘white moderate’ and of course the ‘few Negroes in the middle class’. King’s response to the extremist criticism is not done through outrage, but more so the well-reasoned result of the points that he had previously made.
-******* extremists named by King********
As with his references throughout his letter, they range from the most religious (Jesus Christ) to earthly figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. He has basically united extremity to action, which had been explained by King in his previous argument in the letter as the proper route for a moral man to take on in the face of injustice. All these figures share one thing in common, they did not cry for endurance or silence in the face of injustice, but they have relatively stood up and claimed change. The extremists that were named by King, provides him with the highest points for his previous arguments. They had refused to pick ease over fairness, and they were also willing to make a change in history for status quo. Individual actions shown once again as the most noble course.
Dr. King’s charge towards the clergymen is dominant despite utterly delivered. He aides in differentiating between extremism for love and extremism for hate. His concluding reference in this section is what actually drives the point home. The three men that were killed for extremism in Calgary were mentioned, of which one of them was Christ. Despite the fact that two of them were killed for detestable extremism, Christ was crucified for “creative” extremism. (180) King should have been admired by the clergymen, instead they assumed him and brothers were of the same category as those who sermonize destruction and violence.
This portion of the letter in particular, was intense due to the fact that it makes the most drastic distinction between races of any segment of “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” King clearly debates that “members of the oppressor race [cannot] understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race,” a far cry from the emphasis on the interrelation that explain the early portions of the letter.

(180) In the second half of King’s letter, he takes on more of a prophetic tone, he maintains a subject that mixes both moral and legal functions. In result, King calls a detachment between morality and law a kind of

fear.
When he scolds those who make “a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul,” he suggests that many clergymen are of demanding the status quo, and consequently compromising their moral guidance. (182) It is a fierce and straight attack, a declaration that the clergymen should be abashed of themselves. Once again, King is not asking for their comprehension, he is notifying them that they are either ignorant or too spineless to accept.
In actuality, the theme of obedience becomes most important in these final paragraphs.

King’s ongoing attacks on the contemporary church comes down to a forewarning about taking in the status quo for the reason of comfort. Bearing in mind the many variances Dr. King makes in the first half of the letter among the individual’s moral sense and the group’s harmful impact, his proposal that the church serves aids the group is rather severe. In reality, Dr. King’s vision of the church is one of rebellious minds that wish to adjust the world into a holier setting, in which men convey their more suitable angels short of fear of retaliation. Dr. King’s assail asserts that the church has not only lost its inventive, extremist spirit, but has become a social institution in itself. His attack on the church declares in no unknown terms that he is not an issue because he is an “extremist,” but that rather the Church is in risk because it itself is not “extremist” enough.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” as an incongruous text in that it is never one thing. Dr. King refuses to be either a lecturer or preacher, student or teacher, hero or victim, yet all of the above mentioned at once. He accepts the refutations innate in himself, his cause, and his oppressors, well understanding that by addressing tension he and mankind will proceed to

develop.