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Does Martin Luther King Jr Mean In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King Jr. says this in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. He says this because he feels responsible for everyone in Birmingham and “whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly”. Everything needed to be right or that it would eventually affect everyone and everything. The reason he wrote this letter was because he was trying to convince the eight clergymen that him and his people should use the demonstrations that King provides because it would bring Birmingham out in so many ways. The reason why King is in Birmingham to begin with is because he is the president of an organization called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Which they were called out to Birmingham …show more content…

“How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” In this letter King uses logos as he explains that the answer to that question is because there are two types of laws, just and unjust. King uses St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas who both have two different points of view on just and unjust laws. St. Augustine says that “An unjust law is no law at all.” King agrees with him because an unjust law is “out of harmony with the moral law”. Unjust law is the one that takes away someone’s rights and freedom and damages their personality. It is also a law that puts someone down and is hurtful. An unjust law is a law that is unfair and not right. While a just law “is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God” (King page 3). Just law makes someone personality better and makes them joyful. He refers just laws as “the law of God” because King connects himself to God by saying that they legal rights and constitutional rights are God’s giving rights and that him and his followers are obeying theses rights. …show more content…

King was saying that because he was fighting against segregation and that he didn’t have a permit to go out and protest his rights which is stated in the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of assembly then that becomes an unjust law. Parading without a permit is a fair law but since King is defending segregation he gets arrested and put in jail. However, King doesn’t mind because he was proving that he broke an unjust law and didn’t have a problem with going to jail because segregation is an unjust law. King also mention how he would have disobey Adolf Hitler because he wasn’t doing anything “legal” to the Jews just like how King and his followers was getting treated in

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