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Compare And Contrast Letter From Birmingham Jail And Martin Luther King

586 Words3 Pages

Amity Lodevico
ENG 1A
Professor Clark 10 September, 2016

A strong country can only prevail when individuals have attained the ideals of justice and equality. However, throughout American history people have had to fight for their rights due to the injustices caused by the government. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. promotes the importance of justice and equality through responding to a letter from clergymen who wanted him to stop protesting against racial inequality. King’s letter builds upon his influences such as Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and Thomas Jefferson’s “The Declaration of Independence,” through expressing discontentment with injustice and proclaiming away to combat it. The texts can also …show more content…

Once again King wrote his letter in response to clergymen criticizing his actions against racial inequality. Jefferson wrote his Declaration as an account of the United States’ independence and to express his disappointment with the unjust actions caused by King George. Henry Thoreau wrote “Civil Disobedience” as a way of expressing his opposition towards the United States government. They all express their discontent with injustice through showing what the government is doing wrong. For instance, in Thoreau’s essay he states that the government is supposed to be the “mode where people execute their will;” however, it’s often “abused” and “perverted” (Thoreau, 305). In other words, he trying to reinstate that rather than being useful and efficient, the government is not doing what it’s supposed to do and that is representing the will of the people. King builds upon this idea of a bystander type of government by saying portraying them as the white moderate. The white moderate in his case don’t “understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed…they don’t have vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, determined action” (King, 388). Here King is not only reflecting on the laziness of the white moderate for not seeing the injustices, but in a way he’s mocking them because he believes it takes more of a strong minded person to take action rather than the person who actually has political

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