Date Written: November 23, 2009
Written For: UCCS English 131
Let Freedom Ring
In
Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter, he responds to the requests of the clergymen
who have clearly stated that the demonstrations are “unwise and untimely.” These men ask for these demonstrations
to be kept in court and the issue to be kept amongst the people of Birmingham
and way from outsiders. King uses
an array of information and knowledge to provide a sturdy, well-thought out
argument against the clergymen.
King
has no trouble responding to the clergymen. These men are of high standing and importance. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of
great influence during these demonstrations. King was a pastor and “president of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference” (King 253). He wastes no time in establishing his
credibility to appeal to these men of such high credibility. One way King establishes his
credibility in connection to his audience is appealing to something they know
the best: religion. Martin Luther
King Jr. knows that the laws are unjust and to back up his case, he quotes St.
Thomas Aquinas, “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law
and natural law” (258). This is a
direct appeal to the belief system of these clergymen, all the while supporting
his cause. King continues, “any
law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust
because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality” (258). He uses logic to relate the world of
St. Thomas Aquinas to his present day struggle. He then goes on to quote Paul Tillich, a renowned theologian
and Christian, “sin is separation” (King 258). The clergymen would be aware of Tillich and more than likely
followers of his beliefs, and in Tillich’s eyes, segregation would be a sin, so
it should be with the clergymen.
The church is supposed to be above these human laws and ideals. The teachings if the Bible include
messages of equality and with men who are heads of their congregations not
supporting this message, what are the people supposed to do---follow the word
of the Lord or follow the men they have entrusted to speak these words? King uses another religious
philosopher’s wording to remind the clergymen that people of color are living,
breathing human beings with feelings, “segregation, to use the terminology of
the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an ‘I-it’ relationship for an
‘I-thou’ relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things”
(king 258). He wants these men to
realize what it would be like to feel as if you are an object, not a person.
Preachers
often use stories relevent to their congregation, which appeal to the emotions
of the people. Martin Luther King
Jr. is a master of this technique.
He asks these clergymen to listen to their hearts when he speaks of the
child who asked, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”
(King 257). It would break a
person's heart to have to answer that question, and that is what King is trying
to instill in his audience. King
pushes his emotional appeal a step farther when he speaks of the
treatment of those men and women behind the closed doors of
the jail:
I doubt that you would so quickly
commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment
of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old
Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old
Negro men and boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions,
refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. (King 267)
By using this particular
information, King is able to appeal to the clergymen's sense of compassion all
the while refuting their claims commending the work of the police officers of
Birmingham. King believes that the
police officers “have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the
demonstrators”, however the purpose has been skewed and “they have used the
moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial
injustice”(267, 268). These men
have used a front of nonviolence to only further the agenda of the
pro-segregation side, when behind closed doors they are really continuing the
hatred and violence.
These
clergymen believe that King is an outsider and the troubles in Birmingham
should be settled amongst the people of Birmingham. He says that as a part of the SCLC and their many affiliates
they frequently, “share staff, educational and financial resources with [their]
affiliates” (253). King goes
on to tell the clergymen that he was called in to help the people of Birmingham
fight the good fight, “but more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice
is here” (253). He criticizes the
clergymen even more by linking injustice in Birmingham to the world, “we are
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of
destiny” (King 253). He goes on to
say “anyone who lives inside the United States can never considered an outsider
anywhere within its bounds” (King 253).
King wants these men to realize that he truly is not an outsider, just a
man helping out his fellow men for one purpose of peace and equality.
King
wants justice and equality in this world and he is willing to do anything he
can as long as it is in the vein of nonviolence. He believes in this nonviolence because “nonviolent direct
action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such tension that community
which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue”
(King 266). King knows that this
direct focus will pull interest into the situation without fostering a world of
hate. His statement on tension is only fostered with the wisdom of the great
Socrates, who “felt that was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that
individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the
unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal” (255). King knows that the tension will foster
a need for a change. It is human
nature to seek out the basis behind tension and work towards eliminating that
tension. King is hoping that by nurturing that tension in non-violent way, the
movement can head towards progress and a fair solution for everyone involved
This
country was founded on freedom, and that is at the heart of this tension. King
uses that as a point of hope as, “
we will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, and all over the nation,
because the goal of America is freedom” (267). King demonstrates the fact that “before the pilgrims landed
at Plymouth” (267), people of color were already in America. This is a way of
saying the white men are not the only ones with rights. Not only are they not
the only ones with rights, but they put people of color through difficulty because,
“for more than two centuries, [their] fore-bearers labored in this country
without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters
while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation”, however, “out of a
bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop” (King, 267). Reminding the clergymen of this, King
urges them to keep this in their thoughts and use their sense of logic.
Logic
is a weapon, any good writer keeps in their arsenal. Appealing to logic presents the audience with a plethora of
information to consider. First,
King used the logic of St. Thomas Aquinas to make a statement to which
clergymen were able to relate. Later on in his letter, King uses the words of
Thomas Jefferson, which have been apart of the very fight for equality before
and since the battle for anti-segregation, “we hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal” (King 263). This is logic in its simplest form. If all men are created
equal, then why is there still segregation? Furthermore, why is the church
standing for this intolerance? King relates the youth's disappointment with
these men, leaders of the white church, to their possible future, “if today's
church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will
lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and to be dismissed as
an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century” (King
266). King knows that the church
is losing its younger demographic and he asks the clergymen to use their logic
to see the potential damage they are self inflicting.
In
King's letter, he combines many elements in response to the clergymen. His
knowledge of history and human
behavior all effectively create an argument against many of the men's claims.
This letter presents a strong and pressing message that can be translated to
many audiences and preaches that message to men and women of all ages and
races.
Works
Cited
King, Martin Luther.
“Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Rhetoric
and Writing I: Language Matters. Ed. UCCS Writing Program
Southlake,
TX: Fountainhead Press, 2007. 252 – 269. Print.
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