Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis

Letter From Birmingham Jail Review
Notes:
The letter is in response to a published statement by eight clergymen in Alaban following Martin Luther King Jr.’s (MLK) peaceful protests in Birmingham, Alabama.
Birmingham, Alabama has seen the worst hate crimes towards African American’s in the entire United States.
MLK cannot watch injustice happen in Birmingham because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
All protests we’re completely nonviolent and were the protesters right under the first amendment to the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.
Birmingham leaders met and agreed to take down discriminatory signs if protestors would stop protesting. However, the signs were only taken down for a short time and in some cases not at all.
The

(MLK) has written the reader is able to get a sense of world that African Americans lived it. It is one of constant fear and oppression. In their daily lives no matter where they go African American’s are treated as less than human just because of the color of their skin. This is put into perspective when MLK is describing how he has to tell his daughter why they cannot go to Disney Land. He writes that his daughter asks why colored people are not allowed into Funtown. When she is told that it is only due to her skin color he writes that he can, “see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people”. Even from a young age children are taught that they are less than and not even close to equal to that of white people. In order to change this MLK tried to promote and execute nonviolent protests in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. However, the clergymen of Alabama condemn him for it saying that his protests cause violence. MLK responds by saying that if he is to be condemned for the violence the precipitates his non-violent rallies then this is like accusing a man who has been robbed of having money and it is his own fault that he got robbed. He then relates the whole situation back to Jesus by saying that the clergymen’s accusations are like say that Jesus disturbing the peace by promoting the word of God brought his own death upon himself. In doing so he tries to show the clergymen their mistake for blaming him for upsetting the order of society. MLK also states that the church has become an ineffective body that protects the status quo now that it has become