Martin Luther King Letter From Birmingham Jail

To ‘fight fire with fire’ is a phrase that insinuates that there is a method to stop oppression with more oppression, and violence with more violence. Although many prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties believed this to be true, Dr Martin Luther King Jr did not believe in the violence, and instead would lead a movement of peaceful protests throughout the southern United States. Despite this, he and the people who walked beside him were hosed down, beaten by police, and thrown into prison. Whilst locked away in Birmingham Jail in April 1963, Dr King Jr had nothing but time and an open letter from eight bitter clergymen of Birmingham, condemning the protests. In his response, Letter From Birmingham Jail, Dr Martin Luther

In the same breath, they commend law enforcement for their response and maintaining order, which Dr Martin Luther King Jr tears into in his letter. He refutes this by giving his own testimony on the events, stating “I don't believe you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent Negroes” (King, 5). King uses his credibility as someone who was on the front line of this issue to give a dose of reality to the clergymen, who likely only read the papers from their homes. Furthermore, King speaks on their claim that the peaceful protests were the reason for the violence, pointing out the very obvious fallacy. King uses Jesus as an example, claiming that it would make no logical sense to blame Jesus for having the devotion which led to His crucifixion (King, 3). The use of Jesus as an example is especially effective when addressing clergymen, since it takes a jab at their emotional connection to their faith by implying that their own logic could justify the crucifixion of

In A Call For Unity, the clergymen refer to the movement as unwise and untimely, as well as showing concern for the demonstrators’ willingness to break the law. King addresses this, stating that “YOU express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws” (King, 3). Calling back to a Supreme Court decision that at that point was nine years old really counters the clergymen’s claims of the movement being untimely and unwise, instead proving that they are logically justified in their protesting, and that they were breaking no laws. To counter the claims even more, King mentions the pattern of white ministers not complying with the desegregation laws (King, 5), and in doing so, breaking the laws themselves. This challenges the credibility of the eight white clergymen, since they were the ones putting blame on the demonstrators, when in reality, they were a part of the problem all