Disobedience In Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail

Perspective 1: Disobedience One, seemingly contradictory, thing Martin Luther King, Jr was passionate about was disobedience. Particularly disobedience when it comes to unjust laws. This is contradictory due to the nature of King’s work and mission in creating peace and unity amongst black and white individuals. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, he states, “I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” (King, 85). In King’s eyes, an unjust law is any law that is degrading towards any human regardless of race, gender, or class. He views sticking up for those who are oppressed by the unjust law, even if it means breaking said law, as the right thing to do. King does not want to see black people being treated as less than human as a result of individuals being afraid to fight against unjust laws, so he encourages the peaceful protests and demonstrations that disobey these laws. …show more content…
He said, “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law” (King, 86). In the eyes of King, the law and legal system is a respectable entity that shouldn’t be bogged down with unjust laws that dehumanize and oppress certain racial groups. He wants brave souls to act out against these laws through nonviolent protesting to try to bring public attention to the absurdity of the laws that rule over them so eventually those unjust regulations can be overturned and instead be replaced with respectable, non-oppressive