Kings Stance In Letter From Birmingham Jail

I completely agree with King’s stance in the first two pages of the letters from Birmingham jail. He places multiple points that retain a complete sense toward the opposition of unfairly treated Blacks in Birmingham. Many events have also occurred in Birmingham to fuel his side of the argument. First, we must note that King’s stance is that segregation is very present in Birmingham and that peace and equality are needed here.

The process by which he was there in the first place was completely genuine. He has already gained hate by entering Birmingham due to the fairly placed distrust to strangers and outsiders. However, he has justified this through his program and their goal. His justification surfaces when he notes that he is president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and that he was invited to come to Birmingham on the basis of assisting the segregated community in gaining equality. Even if he weren’t to, it was a respectful and relatable move to go to where you were invited, especially if it is part of the business.

This is not even the tip of the iceberg of what King would have to deal with after his arrival. He has noted that there is injustice everywhere in the community. To get the people to believe him on this stance, he has referred to many events that have taken place in the not too distant past during the time of the letter’s origination. The many things that he cites in his letter included the unfair treatment in court

cases, the quote-on-quote unsolved bombings that have taken place on the homes and churches of only those with dark colored skin, and the false promises that have been made to the very same community as the bombings. There were frequent requests to peacefully resolve issues as small as removing segregated signs from store windows, but even that was declined by the community; yet King remained calm. It became quite evident through the first page that King’s tone has one of the heaviest impacts on his writing. His tone is calm, collected, peaceful, and a mirror of his actions. His tone impacts greatly for multiple reasons. His tone gives the reader a sense of moral and emotional comfort as opposed to an aggressive one that would yield a negative response. His tone also supports what he is arguing for. Positivity brings out other positive reactions. His evidence is also quite influential as he lists several things that have appeared in the Black community.
Some of the things that he has mentioned relates to the following. We’ve been patient for centuries for you to give us the rights that we deserve. The nations in the eastern hemisphere are already making steadfast advances toward liberations while we move at a snail’s pace to take down a sign. You all are like children playing their favorite game, always asking for one more minute. Now is enough and only when you’ve seen many of your kind, your closest friends, your family getting murdered on scales higher than farm animals; when you’ve seen forces that you are supposed to rely on to protect you and keep you safe beat people down with rocks and call you even more worthless than they beat them with; when you’ve felt the thick, dark clouds of depression blocking the light of hope from ever giving you the strength to grow as yourself and with your community; until you’ve thought that suicide is better than letting them discourage you even more; until you’ve heard your one and only child ask when mom or dad is coming home and they never will; until you’ve seen that very same child get on the ground crying and begging you to allow them to go outside and play or to get that new game on the market and you have to tell them we’re not allowed to; until you’ve seen your child making their own realizations and what you see in them is wrath, envy, and every other deadly sin fueling the dark fire in their eyes and mind, and to know that you won’t be alive long enough to stop it; until you’ve wanted to stop and pray to God using a prayer from the Bible until you remember that you can’t read, then you remember that you couldn’t afford the Bible you saw at that store and the one you thought you has was in your dreams from that night you had to sleep on the floor, the dirt, or the ground; until you’ve remembered that very same store has a restriction on your color of skin; until you’ve wanted to get away from all of the madness in the world and relax in your happy place as you go to your favorite diner with your favorite food and your favorite waiter and it has a new sign that also restricts your color; until you’ve experienced all these things then we will not let you tell us to wait one more time. These things relate to what he said to an audience of clergymen, a very powerful influence at the time. This must mean something about the church as well.
In Martin Luther King Jr.’s time, the church did not support his stance.

They either stayed silent or outright opposed him. King comes up with the stance that he is doing what God intends and the church will suffer His wrath by not doing so as well. However, the question is how does King prove this? He proves this using many allusions and stories in his letter from Birmingham Jail. He mentions many people from the past who have even begun the thoughts of killing those who did what was right but not socially

correct.
To start off, we go to the Christian Bible. To relate to what King is talking about, we must look here first. Seeing what King mentions about the Apostle Paul, he did what was right, even though he was killed for it. Just the opposite occurs in the Bible as well. People would do the wrong thing or simply not do anything at all, even though they knew what the right thing was and God would punish them for it. A very common example from the Bible is when the warned family was told by God not to look back as they ran from the burning city or they’ll be turned to pillars of salt. Even given this simple example, some people did look back and were consequently turned into stalks of salt.
Looking more at what King mentions in his letter, he makes examples of many greatpeople who were killed from being out of the ordinary or having unpopular beliefs. Another example King makes is relating himself to Socrates, when he felt that tensions in the mind will free the thoughts from myths and lies. He later relates to him again when talking about causing violence. He relates himself to Jesus in the same regard, mentioning how what He did would make some people want to kill him. Earlier he mentions how early christians were,” willing to face hungry lions and chopping blocks rather than the laws of the Roman Empire.”
This last example is perhaps the most important of them all as it shows one of the main beginnings of all of Christianity. This has even been practiced several times by many followers and the Apostles. The idea of the practice is that by God, it is better to stand against the wrath and power of humans and their tortuous punishment than to stand against God’s wrath because what He can do can and will be worse than anything another human could do. Contributing to this, King also knows that the right thing on the moral compass is almost never the heavily practiced option as humans are constantly prone and exposed to sin. He also knows that he would most likely be the only one to be fully hearted to the cause, proving his motivation even more. However, his tone from proving his point gradually changes near the end of his letter.
At the very end of King’s letter, his tone gives off a more significant change in thought. As mentioned earlier, tone is still a very powerful influence in his letter. At the end, King becomes much more humble than anywhere else in the letter as well as apologetic and sympathetic to the clergymen. He stops arguing for all of his points altogether and there is no more evidence given by him supporting his side. He apologizes and asks for their forgiveness several times even though his points are all valid. He even shows continued interest to work with them as a fellow priest. In doing this, he relinquishes the chance of them seeing him as rude or even a threat. This also opens them up more for empathizing and increases the chance for them to listen to his letter and consider it. The letter was clearly influential, especially here, but would that work in modern day?
In today’s society, people are very hateful toward being pointed out their own problems and don’t like people who aren’t their friends. In today’s society, you must resonate with people to show them that you’re no different. In order to point out issues with someone, you must compliment them and tell them how to fix it, even offering to help sometimes. Finally, in today’s society, advertisement rules all. It’s in the streets; it’s on phones; it’s on televisions; it’s on and in buildings; it’s everywhere. You can’t look like everyone else, you must be emphasizing. To use this and everything mentioned before it, the first thing you, or rather King, would want to do is to communicate effectively. King would’ve realized that nobody was listening to his ideas and would’ve done something to become known first. From this, he can speak his thoughts on social media and website programs. He’d have to do or at least plan something big every month to maintain his status. He would then have to resonate with the people whose attention he does have, so he can be more than a mere idol. He would even have to change his methods depending on his audience, which he may not do as it’s a very morally wrong thing to make action of. From there, whether he did that or not, let society take its course. People communicate with each other so effectively these days that one word could get half way across the world in less than a couple days.
King’s messages from Birmingham jail spoke wavelengths far greater than his original intentions. His tone proved to be efficient toward the effective communication between him and the church. He made his points very clear in terms of proving his beliefs. His argument has been validated several times by his abuse of parallel structure. He proves to the church how remaining idle or being fearful of humans will become much worse once the punishment of God is upon them. The letter itself reflected his his humble and highly intellectual self. Sadly enough, in today’s society, most of this wouldn’t be effective enough to reach the minds of many people. Yet, it is still possible to retain hope.