Summary Of Martin Luther King Letter From Birmingham Jail

No man is as closely associated with the American civil rights movement as Martin Luther King Jr., whose use of peaceful protests and civil disobedience was instrumental in achieving equal rights for Black Americans. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a Baptist pastor from Montgomery, Alabama; both witnessed and experienced racism first hand all throughout his life. He attended segregated public elementary and high schools, and graduated from Morehouse College, which was a historically black school, in 1948. His civil rights activism for his race led him to become an executive member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and eventually, the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He is

It was a direct response to the “Alabama Clergymen’s Public Statement to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”, which condemned King’s use of public demonstrations. His purpose in writing the open letter was to address topics with which the undersigned clergymen of the public statement took issue. He also aimed to explain why said public demonstrations were necessary for bringing about tangible civil justice, as well as garnering more support for the cause. King’s intended audience was not only the clergymen who penned the public statement, but also Christians and the people of the United States as a whole. In his “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. successfully argues that peaceful protests and public demonstrations are necessary for bringing about civil justice. In order to effectively convey this, he utilizes religious references to establish credibility through his faith, implements logical reasoning to deconstruct the opposition's claims, and writes with emotional language which thoroughly supports his

He immediately establishes his credibility by stating in the second paragraph of the letter that he serves as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and should therefore be recognized as an authority figure. His specific use of the word “serving” helps him relate to the clergymen because it explains that he is, like them, serving both God and the church, just in a different way than them. In order to deconstruct the clergymen’s idea that MLK was an “outside agitator” coming from a different city and upsetting the status quo in Birmingham, MLK used biblical allusions to establish religious credibility. In the introduction of the letter, he compares himself to a widely known Christian missionary, stating that “...just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town” (King 1). This comparison aided MLK in making the clergymen view him as a fellow man of the Christian faith, member of the clergy, and missionary rather than as a threat because of the intentionally dispersive nature of their commonly held beliefs. He furthers this by stating that “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds” (King 1). By making this assertion he relates himself to the clergymen