Depiction of The Injustices of Birmingham in Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. he explains the injustices happening all over the United States but especially in the city of Birmingham. King and his followers are preparing for direct action because they have collected facts about the ongoing injustices in Birmingham and the city officials refuse to negotiate and when they do agree on negotiating, fail to comply. Now the process of self-purification has begun about educating themselves and realizing what’s going to happen next.

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King is not only speaking to his fellow Clergymen but to everyone because he states “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality” and what King means is that one person is being invalidly superior and the other inferior. African Americans soul would be distorted and their personalities would be damaged and anyone who would cause this would get a false uplift on their personality. This is creating emotional and psychological pain that would scar a person for the rest of their life and it would change drastically. It is morally wrong and King urges to civilly disobey segregation to the fullest extent. He compares the year 1963 to earlier times when Adolf Hitler was killing Jewish people legally but it was illegal to aid them in Germany. King states that because it was morally right to aid and comfort a Jewish person in need he would do so even though the law says otherwise and its unjust at that time. This clearly states how it’s acceptable to civilly disobey the law because it is morally correct to do so. King agrees with St. Augustine on “An unjust law is no law at all” for example the “outside agitator idea” meaning that if you are not from here you cannot live here. Anything that affects one single person in this country affects everyone in one way or another.

“Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States”. King also claims because just because the injustices happening in Birmingham does not mean it isn’t happening elsewhere. This ongoing issue on injustice there is just one of the problems from the big picture. He is trying to explain to everyone that this is connected to racial injustice on a national level not just the city of Birmingham. There is unsolved bombings, unfair treatment, unsolved bombings in churches and homes going on in Birmingham and these are the collection a facts.

“Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” King claims and he believes that the national system is in quick sand and he wants everyone to get out of it and shine light upon it. “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights” King strongly states because of what they have been through. King gives almost a whole pageful of examples of what African Americans have been through because of the people who have never experienced segregation keep delaying their basic civil rights and keep saying “wait.” He is saying enough is enough already and there is no better time to do so now.

King and his followers have tried to negotiate but city officials refuse to do so. They have realized what has to come next and started organizing for direct action. King is trying to create an atmospheric pressure of uncomfort for the city officials to make the change happen already. All King is trying to do is to open the door for negotiation. In the letter from Birmingham Jail, King states that some people have questioned his direct action call which means he is doing right and they are feeling pressured. Martin Luther King Jr. will spread the word of freedom as Apostle Paul did with the word of Jesus Christ while both of them leaving their hometown for it. He has a very deep knowledge on the Bible and on the history of Christianity so he relates himself to Apostle Paul on as him being the leader like himself and trying to convert people not into Christians, but into people that believe in equality and freedom for all. King believes this is his duty and his call for aid and will do it consistently and constantly throughout like Paul responding to the Macedonian call for aid. Kings followers are Americans that believe in his word and it is people that could see the relation on good morals and Christianity. In a letter from his brother from Texas states that “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, … it has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has…”. King includes this in his own letter because he is comparing his journey to the journey of Christianity.

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All in all Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spread the gospel of freedom towards all over the United States and sent a message. Because of King’s parades and non-violent direct action gatherings he created a spark and made and change that affected everyone one way or another. As analyzed in the essay, in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King stresses the injustice happening in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. King shed light not just on that city, but exposed that this is not only happening their but it is all over the nation. The United States and the city of Birmingham were connected to each other and that is that the injustices happening there are tied to the whole racial injustice all over the United States. This letter was not only made for his Fellow Clergymen but meant for all.