Essay On Letter From Birmingham Jail

The 1960’s was an era of time that can be defined by change and milestones. From the Civil Rights protests to the assassination of a beloved leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, many lives were greatly affected. In America, the 1960’s ended on a good note when the United States won the Space Race. However, in the beginning of the 1960’s, people were being stoned for trying to fight for their basic rights. The Deep South, Alabama particularly, was defined by segregation and Jim Crow. In fact, the sociopolitical infrastructure of Alabama in the 1960’s was molded around Jim Crow laws despite the current desegregation laws. This is highlighted in Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and the situation in which he wrote

In fact, many people would consider Birmingham the heart of racism and racial tension in the States, MLK Jr. would even say, “Birmingham is the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known” (King 222). Most of this brutality was delivered by the Birmingham city government. Eugene “Bull” Connor was the commissioner of public safety in Birmingham at that time. Bull is now infamously known for his use of fire hoses and police dogs on Civil Rights activists (Fiss 5). Once MLK Jr. came into Birmingham, he and Bull Connor were constantly in conflict. It was, in fact, Bull Connor who arrested MLK Jr. which led to the writing of “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” After an injunction, that forbid public leaders of the Civil Rights Movement from promoting or participating in demonstrations, was acquired by Connor, MLK Jr. continued with a planned demonstration on the next day which resulted in MLK Jr.’s arrest (Tiefenbrun 265). While in jail, MLK Jr. was secretly brought a published piece in the local newspaper. This piece, “Call for Unity,” was a statement from eight distinguished religious leaders of Alabama; the piece berated the civil rights movement in Birmingham as “‘unwise and untimely’ and a provocation to hatred and violence” (Westbrook 22). In response to this piece, MLK Jr. responded with his own “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” This letter, though addressed

King expresses the reasoning and beliefs behind the entire Civil Rights Movement. He explains that everyone is affected by segregation, not just African Americans. No longer should people be moderate on an issue so important; important issues demand extremists. Significant figures such as Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, Paul, and even Jesus were considered extremists in their time. MLK Jr. even goes to say that everyone is an extremist, there is no middle ground, so “what kind of extremists we will be… Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists” (MLK Jr. 231). The readers of this letter agreed, and they started taking a stance on the issue; many chose to stop the injustice. This letter and the acts and events in Birmingham that followed the publication of the letter ended up being some of the defining moments of the Civil Rights Movement (Martin