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Nathan W. Lindstrom

Professor Brych

English 1A

February 16, 2017

Academic Summary of Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther

King, Jr.

While jailed in Birmingham for civil disobedience, Martin Luther King, Jr. saw

a letter written by a group of clergymen that questioned the wisdom and

timing of his recent activities. In a move that was not typical for him, King

chose to reply to their criticisms, and thus the Letter from Birmingham Jail

was born. In it, King defends his choice of using the time-honored tradition

of civil disobedience.

King begins his letter by citing several of his critics complaints, saying

that they were raised in good faith, and that he would answer them as such.

He establishes himself as both their religious equal and as a long-suffering

and reasonable person. Then by clearly enumerating the sequence of

actions seen in a civil disobedience campaign, King lays a clear groundwork

for the arguments he seeks to defend through his letter.

From the very beginning, King seeks to avoid the appearance of having

rushed into the decision to use civil disobedience. He gave the economic

leadership in the area opportunity to avoid the consequence of civil

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disobedience, and they promised certain changes, among them to remove

the humiliating racial signs from [their] stores (740). However, after a

period of some months went by, the signs remained (740). King then

carefully prepared for the campaign, by proceeding through a period he calls

self-purification, which involved such activities as training on nonviolent

resistance. King also selected the time window for the activity for maximum

impact on the local economy: We decided to set our direct action program

around the Easter season, realizing that with the exception of Christmas, this

was the largest shopping period of the year (740).

King moves on to provide a taxonomic classification of what he terms

just and unjust laws. Just laws, he says, are those rules written by man

that agree with laws defined by the bible and by morality. On the other

hand, King argues, an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the

moral law (743). King backstops his arguments by citing several well-

respected authorities on the subject, including Thomas Aquinas and Paul

Tillich.

Having described the how and when of civil disobedience, he now

tackles the question of why, and how he determines when a law should be

kept, and when a law should be broken. The underpinning principle to Kings

actions is that just laws should be kept, while unjust laws should not. He

provides several examples in defense of his arguments, and then appeals

directly to the Christian clergy, followed by an appeal to the Jewish rabbi. His
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Christian appeal centers around the well-known fable of the fiery furnace;

while his Jewish appeal cites Hitlers actions in Germany.

Having made his arguments in defense of civil disobedience, King

moves on to address those he refers to as the white moderates, and

upbraids them for standing idly by on the sidelines while constantly

[advising] the Negro to wait until a more convenient season (744). It is

clear that King finds such individuals frustrating, for he says that lukewarm

acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection (745).

By tying organized religion, in particular, the white church in with the

white moderate, King is able to segue from denouncing white moderates in

general to criticizing organized religion in particular. Indeed, his complaints

are first targeted at the white church, but he soon drops the prefix of

white and simply addresses the church as a whole. He concludes his

complaints with a warning that he sees an increasing groundswell against

the status quo of organized religion by a concerned and active minority.

These people, King says, have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark

mountain of disappointment (750).

As King nears the end of his letter, his tone changes; from critical to

heroic, and then to victorious. He calls the Negro participants in civil

disobedience heroes, and promises that the day will come when the South

recognizes them as such. He likens them to James Merediths, the first black

man to ever enter the University of Mississippi, saying that one day the

South will recognize its real heroes (752). King concludes his letter with a
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call to action and poetic description of his highest hopes, inviting the reader

to join him in his hopes and dreams for a tomorrow that is free of racial

prejudice.
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Works Cited

King, Martin Luther, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail.

The Writers Presence. Ed. Donald McQuade and Robert Atwan. Boston:

Bedford, 2006.