Martin Luther King Letter From Birmingham Jail Summary

Martin Luther King Jr wrote about the criticisms that he was subjected to when he started to protest racial injustices in Birmingham, Alabama and why he couldn't wait to take action. King responds to these criticisms, while being in jail, with a variety of different ways. King replies to his criticisms and uses religion, psychology, morality and history to support his actions. Throughout his letter he makes connections between what he is doing and to what other people did in history, and religion. He does this because he wants everyone whether they are Jewish, Christian, Atheist, etc to understand the points he is trying to make. He discusses just and unjust laws and the types of extremism in African American protests. Martin Luther King Jr writes his letter while he is in a Birmingham

King disagrees with these criticisms and goes on to explain that if he people keep delaying the fight for freedom then it will never happen. He says that black people have waited for “more than 340 years”.(King 3) Another topic that King mentions is the fact that he wants white people to uphold the law but he is fine with black people disobeying the law. He addresses this issue by comparing the difference between a just and an unjust law. A just law is a law that upholds human dignity but an unjust law is a law that hurts or oppresses. He makes a comparison to Nazi Germany where what the Germans were doing was considered “legal” and he says that he would've supported to the oppressed class had he lived there. King also says that when he and his followers break an unjust law they are willing to receive the consequences. He says that this shows that they have the highest respect for the law. King also explains why he is in Birmingham in the first place. He says that Birmingham is the center of all injustice and he can't sit idle and watch from Georgia while injustice occurs. He goes on to explain that injustice that occurs in one place affects other places. He feels