Summary Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

486 Words2 Pages

Brian Ezenwugo
Political Science
Mr. Somma
December 1st, 2014
Letter From Birmingham Jail

The Letter from Birmingham Jail is a document written by Martin Luther King Jr. on April 16, 1963. This letter defended the approach of peaceful accommodations to racial discrimination, debating that citizens have a just responsibility to break biased laws. This letter stands alone as one of the most influential documents of the civil rights era.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter was intended to “My Dear Fellow Clergymen.” (King, 1) Dr. King explained that he read the recent statement published by clergymen in a Birmingham newspaper, and how they described Dr. King’s latest actions in the town as ill advised and inopportune. He initially accredited the criticism and claimed that he was just one of the huge amount of black southerners that may cause mayhem in the streets. He is the president of the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), centered in Atlanta, Georgia but managed through the South. He displays the magnitude of the group's expansive range, and then explains …show more content…

Throughout the letter he doesn’t solely address the clergymen's distress such as King looking on as an outcast coming in, the disputes and marches being irresponsible and ill timed, but he expected a deeper form of interrogation. The clergymen had a sense of urgency for conferences and meetings, in place of direct action, but King needed to illustrate that direct action is essential to reach fair negotiating terms. Besides just constructing arguments for this point and being unprepared for rebuttal, he anticipated questions that they might ask. King concentrated on interests from the competition during his entire letter. By addressing these trepidations in an unbiased and reasonable manner, he showed the audience that he gave an abundant amount of thought to their opinion and took them

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Summary Of Letter From Birmingham Jail