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Summary Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

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"Letter from Birmingham Jail" was written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on 16 April 1963 in a solitary confinement cell in Birmingham, Alabama. He had terrible conditions when writing this letter since it is known that some parts of this letter were smuggled out by his lawyer on scraps of paper and even rough jailhouse toilet paper. Things were not looking good on Birmingham either, violent racism terror against black people was so bad that the city was being called “Bombingham” by some residents. But these things did not make King give up, he stood up for what he believes is true and he fought for it. In the following paragraphs, we will look at a brief summary of the letter to understand it better and after that we will try to see …show more content…

He tells that they are more devoted to "order" than to justice and they think they can restrict a man's freedom with their shallow understandings. King has hoped that they would understand that we have laws in order to have justice in this world. After that, King addresses the claim of him being an "extremist". He accepts this claim and describes that he is in the middle of two extreme ideas. One of them is to do nothing and the other one is a violent protest by hatred black nationalists. He informs that if King's philosophy is not emerged, more people will be on the violent side and it will inevitably lead to a chaos. Even though he wasn't happy about being categorized as an extremist at first, he states that he is now happy with the label, giving several examples of people considered extremist back in the day, like Jesus. After that, King talks about his disappointment of the Southern church, staying silent and not giving him any help. However, he is happy to see some white people who are in the same page with him. At last, he mentions the police torturing black people for no reason, and blames Clergymen for commanding them to do so. King believes that one day the clergymen will recognize their real heroes, which are the brave black men fighting against injustice. He finishes the letter with apologizing about the length of his letter but tells that considering he is alone in a narrow jail cell, he …show more content…

I imagined a dark, cold room where King was sitting by himself. Although he was in a very bad condition, I think his letter is masterfully crafted. He made me understand the situation very well. I felt bad for black people living in those times and I was also ashamed of the unacceptable behavior of "white moderate". He made me feel so much empathy that I thought I could be the one to solve all of the problems and bring justice to everywhere. When I read the quote "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother", I was ready to join him no matter

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