Dr. King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Letter from Birmingham Jail Dr. King's letter is a powerful peace relating the mentality and feeling of not only himself, but all the people he was fighting for. The letter showed the reasoning behind their ideals and explained the urgency with which they presented them. Their fight was an important one and as they knew, necessary for the forward movement of civil rights. Dr. King states how this movement can not wait. No matter what anyone says and thinks, without first hand experience of segregation, lynching, brutality, and inequality one can not understand how urgent such civil rights are and how waiting is not an option. “There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair”(Dr. King 2). Dr. King is speaking to the fact …show more content…

In fact what what lead to the existence of this letter was Dr. King’s arrest for breaking a law during one of his marches. He was put in jail for not having a parade permit. Dr. King speaks about how while this isn’t necessarily a bad or inhumane law, the use of such a law to stop the peaceful fight for civil rights, an assemble protected by the constitution, makes it unjust. Those are the two types of laws, he says. Just and unjust. “I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘An unjust law is no law at all’(Dr King 2). An unjust law, something not rooted in the morals of people or God can not possibly be expected to be followed. This is how he separates right from wrong. He sees it fit to break an unjust law for they exist simple to keep things how they are and hold people back from change. When change is exactly what you are trying to accomplish you must not bend to unjust laws in order to succeed in your efforts. With strength, belief, and morals laws won’t be able to hold back those who have an equal and good vision for the