Due to the protests he and his followers staged in Birmingham, Alabama, against the injustices meted out to African Americans, Martin Luther King Jr. was detained. While incarcerated, King penned the famous letter "A Letter from Birmingham Jail," in which he responded to the criticisms of his efforts to secure justice for black Americans raised by eight pastors. The letter responded to some critiques contained in the clergymen's "A Call for Unity." The clergymen concurred that societal injustices existed in the US. However, they contended and postulated that the fight against the racial discrimination had to be done only in the court system and not through protests that were evident on the streets. Through the later, King delivered clear stands against the criticism that were based on religious aspect. King, a vital racism activist, he challenged the entrenchment of the social system arguing his cases on political, legal and historical grounds in his letter. King vehemently spoke of the US nation’s oppression acts on the black race and used persuasive techniques to communicate his point of view to the audience and presented a powerful defense of his goals. Tactics and the motivations of the Civil Rights Movement and the Birmingham campaign worked towards attaining equality. The letter also mentioned that the use of non-violent demonstrations was significant in communicating and demanding the needs of the blacks in a more peaceful manner. The African Americans were subjected to numerous oppressions such as slavery, racial segregation, and inequality treatment and these oppressions worked towards undermining their rights and freedom.
Arguments on Letter from Birmingham Jail on African American Experiences
Injustices that were done to the African Americans were indeed detrimental and damaging. Cases of injustices were rampant, and the fact proved to devastate the Africans. King states in his letter that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” (King 2). In the letter, King provided a warning that if the Whites restricted the blacks in conducting the non-violent protests, it would push many African Americans to search for security and solace in the Black Nationalist ideologies. He states that the idea would be guided by the thirsty quests of seeking justice and thus could have culminated in the development of an inevitably frightening racial nightmare. Certainly, the non-violent protests led to the creation of constructive tensions that drove at compelling, meaningful negotiations with the American administration. King also cited the previous failed negotiations towards justice in the letter and wrote that the African Americans were not left with any option but to demonstrate and demand justice to prevail in the society.
The injustices have refrained the blacks from enjoying their rights to freedom. He asserted that freedom was never willingly given by the oppressor by through strong demand from the oppressor owing to the painful experiences. King wrote that the time to demand freedom had arrived refuting the clergymen's argument that the time for the public actions had not been reached. Indeed, the African American people faced turbulent times in the white people's hands. They were discriminated by the whites, and no equality existed including the rights to vote. The African Americans were seen to be inferior human beings due to their skin color and thus encountered segregation in their day to day life. In such critical decisions, it called for a person to behave in a more responsible manner. King ascertained that “justice too long delayed is justice denied” (King 3). He listed the many injustices cases that were ongoing and done to the blacks including himself. Thus, a high affinity to the realization of equality and the need to abolish racism was a call from the blacks. In the letter, King stated that the Civil Rights Movement was a vital organization to the realization of the black needs. Organizations such as Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had existed since 1910, and they brutally led the cruel violence done to the African Americans. This violence included mob injustices and lynching and the white organizations undermined the rights of the blacks.
The blacks experienced ruthless and mistreatment in the hands of the whites that substantially left them distressed. Segregation was a rampant aspect that fundamentally demoralized the African Americans. Ending racial discrimination and segregation was one of the essential reasons that were pointed out in Letter from Birmingham Jail. King argued that he would attain his objectives including abolishing racism through the nonviolent protesting. For many years, slavery had existed in America and had worked towards destroying the black Americans. In the 1930s, the war to end the segregation was the underlining factor that facilitated the development of the Civil Rights Movements. According to Lawson and Jack, the southern legislation had passed confederate laws known as “the black codes” which also propelled racism (Lawson and Jack 14). These laws primarily provided a limitation to the black on their rights and pushed the segregation of the blacks. Lawson and Jack document that 95% of the blacks were slaves and faced massive segregation in places like theaters, schools, public areas even in taverns (Lawson and Jack 16).
Inequality violence was also strongly propagated to the African Americans, and it became highly widespread through the racially discriminatory laws. This violence led to the death of many African Americans. The blacks were denied voting rights and any accessibility to the public facilities. Indeed, inequality was an upsetting aspect to the blacks. The African Americans were mainly illiterate as they did not have the rights to get access to education but rather designated to work on the farms as slaves. Undoubtedly, the blacks encountered many violence cases in America. In his letter, King notes that “I was invited by our Birmingham affiliate because injustice is here, in what is probably the most racially divided city in the country, with its brutal police, unjust courts, and many unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches" (King 3). One of the brutal violence was a lynching of the blacks. The blacks were also prone to mob injustices that prevailed in the society. The segregation and inequality were supported by the legal system and the policing actions, and beyond the laws, there existed terrorism and violence of the African Americans. The Knights of White, Knights of White and many other White terrorist groups majorly managed to murder many blacks. These groups directed their violence to the African Americans and promoted racial inequalities. Lawson and Jack report that in the south, more than 2000 blacks were lynched and shot alive (Lawson and Jack 20). The African Americans were also inhumanly beaten by the whites until they died. All these violence resulted in many African American deaths which drew national attention and astonished some of the prominent leaders such as President Roosevelt and President Kennedy.
The undesirable experiences and the racial segregation were facilitated by the Jim Crow laws. King presented in Letter from Birmingham Jail that he would fight against the laws that discriminated the blacks in various institutional settings. The Jim Crow Laws were majorly applicable to the South. The end of the racial reconstruction in 1877 saw the development of Jim Crow laws, and since the late 18th century to 1960s, the Jim Crow laws were functional and directed at victimizing the blacks. This had become a tradition to the American society and thus King aimed at weeding out the laws from the society. Lawson and Jack assert that every black was to adhere to the stipulated laws (Lawson and Jack 27). These laws extended and caused the denial of civil rights and all forms of social aspects regarding the blacks. There existed signs which read “Whites Only” or “Colored” that were placed in the doors of the public facilities and even at drinking fountains. High segregation was evident in the hotels, libraries, stores and other public institutions. The laws stimulated a racism environment and caused the rise of lynching and other forms of injustices. The Jim Crow Laws also triumphed in the housing sector, and the blacks were not allowed to buy or rent any house for a living. There was a need for the blacks to end this violence. Jim Crow Laws led to massive injustices in the court and judicial systems. The injustices in the ruling of the court cases resulted into the assortment of boycotts, legal suits, marches and mass sit-ins that directed at the issue of segregation.
King in his letter expressed the frustrations that the African Americans faced from the opposing forces of the black community including the clergymen. King in the letter pointed out it was the time that the church had to take a decisive stand regarding the black community. King proved to be a central figure in the Civil Rights movement. King managed to bring attention to the racial mistreatments in the US (Lawson and Jack 29). He also portrayed that Birmingham and the entire Alabama city was one of the top American cities that highly segregated the blacks. The reader of the letter is also able to note that King brought out an emotional appeal to the experiences of the blacks that make the reader picture his descriptions vividly. King made a discussion of the ugly records of harsh actions and stated them to be “Hard, brutal and unbelievable facts” (King 4). The letter is the greatest piece that came from Martin Luther King in the struggle for civil rights. The letter attacks his critics while in jail and defends the actions of the black people to seek justice through demonstrations. Indeed, the letter is a clear manifestation of the realities that surrounded the African Americans.
Conclusion
King’s letter is found to be significant in the history of the black struggle for freedom. The letter was a clear expression of the King’s and the blacks’ feelings towards the oppressions and injustices that prevailed in the American society. The letter is well written and argues the examples of the events that portrayed injustices such as slavery and the discrimination from the public facilities. More significantly, the letter provided an explanation of the events that perpetuated in Birmingham in 1963 and the entire US community. Notably, the move to fight for the freedom and equality precipitated into the development of the Civil Rights Movement. These movement aimed at carrying out non-violent demonstrations that would peacefully communicate their demands. Indeed, the African Americans endured a lot of ill-treatment, and there living was filled with cases of violence, segregations, and inequalities. The Jim Crow laws did work towards denying the blacks the right to accessing various public facilities and institutions. Slavery was an overwhelming experience that did not only make the Africans have difficulties in living but also drove the establishment of organizations that aimed at curbing slavery. Undeniably, the acts of the black slavery form a better part of the American history. King’s efforts to realize equality left behind a legacy that will always remain to be relevant to the African Americans diaries.
Works cited
King Martin Luther Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. King Encyclopedia. April 16, 1963. Accessed on May 17, 2017 from http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/annotated_letter_from_birmingham.1.html
Lawson, Steven F., and Jack M. Bloom. "Race and The Civil Rights Movements." The American Historical Review, vol 93, no. 2, 1988, p. 506. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/1860078.
