King Letter From Birmingham Jail

King’s letter was not an innocent appeal, it was designed for manipulation. First, he defended his very presence in Birmingham by taking advantage of the patriotism that brought citizens from every state together to be American. He then listed in vibrant detail the injustices, past and present, heaped upon the backs of the African American race. King stood behind the civil disobedience that his group practiced with an explanation of his meaning of “unjust laws.” He refuted the claim that he and his followers were extremists by twisting the definition favorably in his direction. King’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail” was effective at convincing the audience of the appropriateness of the movement. King denied vehemently that he did not belong …show more content…
First, King recounted the four steps which led to their current situation; collection of facts, negotiation, self-purification, and lastly, direct action. This list decimated the perception that his group had simply turned to the streets to riot and showed that they had put legitimate effort into diplomatic negotiations in the first place. He described “postponement after postponement,” in description of the drawn out process that he and his group had undergone. As for their failed negotiations, King recounted for his respondents the way in which government officials and store owners ignored and disregarded their calls for change. He opened the door to the distant past as well, putting to words that in the 340 years since the first settlers came to the Americas, African Americans had advanced toward equality in only minuscule increments while at that very moment, Asian and African nations across the ocean quickly approached independence. In this way, King slowly and steadily built tension in his audience, priming them for release. He also implemented very vivid language, making his subject and descriptions pop in such a way that was impossible to ignore. He described “blasted” hopes, the “shadow of deep disappointment,” the “disease of segregation,” “piercing familiarity,” the “stinging darts of segregation,” “an …show more content…
He explained that within his thought process, there existed two different types of laws: just and unjust. In King’s opinion, a person had “a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws.” In defense of this way of thinking, he quoted St. Augustine’s assertion that “An unjust law is no law at all.” He provided numerous examples of how one could discern whether a law was just or unjust. In his own words: “A just law is a manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law,” “An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself,” “By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself,” “A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.” King also included the rationales of just and unjust laws put forth by historical philosophers. “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law,” “Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” By including relative quoted material from