Similarities Between Karl Marx And Letter From Birmingham Jail

The idea of communism arose from The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto was a political pamphlet that gave an approach to class struggle and capitalism. The pamphlet soon after became popular across the world. Over a 100 years later, an African-American civil rights leader by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. would read this pamphlet and use similar idea's to achieve his dream of integration and equality. King, a minister, was known for using somewhat communist views in reference to Marx in many of his speeches and letters. One of the most prominent being the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The works and beliefs of Karl Marx and King tend to overlap in terms of the oppressed, the law, and alienation.

Both Marx and King agree that the oppressed will always try to gain control of the oppressed and the oppressed will eventually riot and fight back. Marx wrote that eventually tension will rise between the "powerful and the powerless." Meanwhile in King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he states that "freedom is never given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Both statements agree that freedom will never be voluntarily given to the oppressor it must be taken.

Marx wrote that laws were created to fulfill the wishes of the oppressor. The government uses police force to enforce these laws and make sure that they are upheld. Marx uses the term "disintegration" to define that the law is made up of a few oppressors and an abundance of the oppressed. He states that in a powerful state, laws are enforced to destroy any threats of diversion. King had a similar view on the way the law worked. In his letter he opens his views on the law by speaking out on the police force. He writes the following lines:

"When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at