Letter from Birmingham Jail

Letter from Birmingham Jail

The imagery Martin Luther uses in his letter is amazing and really put the racism of the 1950's into great perspective - his perspective. when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six 

year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people. This sentence really got to me. I could feel an emotional punch the the stomach as I imagined myself as a father living in a country where my family and I were treated lower than everybody else. This reading makes me thankful for the sacrifices that people in the African-American Civil Rights Movement went through in order to bring equality to our nation. I'm also thankful I didn't have to live in an era like this and that I was born into a family with equal views on races other than my own.

P: Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this letter to show us how to protest peacefully. He taught us the four steps of a nonviolent campaign.

T: Thought African Americans were treated poorly and were discriminated against, Martin Luther King Jr. took the nonviolent approach to attempt to reach an agreement to end racism toward African Americans.

I: Even though Martin Luther King Jr. was persistent in his non-violent campaign, there were too few 'white brethren' who supported his cause. Not even the white christian churches would support King's movement.

C: Even if the consequences look bleak, one must stand for laws which are just and stand against those which are unjust. Martin Luther wrote this letter from a prison and suffered all that he had because of what he believed in.