What Is Mlk Thesis In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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The fight for minority rights in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s was an age of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the main instigators that made vigorous displays of civil disobedience through peaceful marches, speeches and publications. One of his famous publications was the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by MLK to answer and explain his points one segregation to religious figures and critics. This letter was written while MLK was in jail for marching without a permit to which he explains his purpose as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Additionally the organization was sent an invitation to Birmingham due to raising racial tensions. Furthermore explaining the lengths minorities …show more content…

MLK dramatizes his own experiences telling the reader “When you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity…then you will understand” using words with violent connotation that makes the reader feel how wrong and dirty these policemen are to the black community. When the reader can imagine a white police officer beating a black person who cannot fight back with freedom and hatred burning in the police officer’s eyes it puts into perspective how unjustified it is that a person is beaten to death for their skin color. Furthermore the emotion behind the part MLK states “then you will understand” because one who has never suffered from such treatment does not find the brutality towards others to affect them so it is in no importance to them. MLK describes how it is to “forever fight a degenerating sense of “nobodyness” in a world where it does not matter who a person is are but what defines a person is the color of their skin. The fact that being anything else than white makes you a target, makes you less honorable, and respectable. Later MLK declares, “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality” through the oppressors false sense gratification and the oppressed a false sense of helplessness. When a critic told MLK that his action as non-violent as they are still create violence so they must be arrested and MLK response was “ isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of