For Dr. King: Reflections on Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Reflection on “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

I was told by a former professor that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written around the edges of a day old newspaper because his jailers refused to give him any clean paper. As is apparent from reflecting on his life and his legacy, Dr. King was not a man who took refusal at face value once he was convinced that the necessary course of action was the one that would serve a greater good. Dr. King states in his essay that there are just and unjust laws and that he would agree with Saint Augustine’s proclamation that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Dr. King then goes on to define an unjust law. He states that, “An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself.” He also states that, “An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote.” He reminds his readers that, “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything that Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungry was ‘illegal.’” Finally he states that “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come.” I agree with Dr. King’s assertion that there are just and unjust laws and that it is against man’s nature to submit himself to unjust laws.

Dr. King uses both philosophical and spiritual principles in his essay to justify the use of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance as a means of obtaining equality for the American Negro. This essay was directed primarily at a group of fellow clergymen who had called on King to stop using nonviolent resistance as a means to advance the Civil Rights Movement. Therefore, Dr. King was not asking his readers to accept his argument based on accepting his faith views, as those clergymen already claimed to hold the same faith views as Dr. King. They also were claiming that these faith views supported their argument for ceasing to use civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance as a means to speed the acquisition of civil rights for American Negroes. Dr. King makes the excellent point that throughout human history, “…privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily,” and if indeed nonviolent activists are extremists, then “…maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” I also agree with Dr. King’s assertions that if the Negro population had not been led by him to believe in the effective possibilities of nonviolent resistance, the Civil Rights Movement might have been a far bloodier and violent eruption than it turned out to be.

Dr. King was heavily influenced by the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi stated that, “The world rests upon the bedrock of satya or truth. Asatya, meaning untruth, also means non-existent, and satya or truth also means that which is. If untruth does not so much as exist, its victory is out of the question. And truth being that which is can never be destroyed” (Easwaran 1987). While the view that Dr. King took of injustice was seen through a Christian lens, his assertion that there are fundamental truths and laws that govern humanity was one that can be found echoed in many different philosophies and cultures. This assertion can be found in the works of Mahatma Gandhi, who was a devout Hindu as well as in the thoughts of Socrates (whom Dr. King refers to his essay). It is even apparent in the writings of Ayn Rand, the developer of the philosophy of Objectivism which seems far removed from any type of religiously based philosophy. Rand states as one of the four pillars of Objectivism, “Give me liberty or give me death” (Rand 1996).

This acceptance of the idea of universally just and unjust laws necessitates the breaking of the law when a law is unjust. The basic premise of nonviolent resistance is that no one can oppress someone else without some degree of compliance on the victim’s part. If the victim refuses to co-operate, then he or she can not be victimized. The larger the number that refuse to comply, the more effective the effort of nonviolent resistance will be. One of my undergraduate professors engaged in just such a nonviolent resistance effort during the Civil Rights Movement. She lived in Montgomery, Alabama. The weekend after the bloody confrontations in Selma, Alabama, she and her cohorts (most of whom were female) put on their gloves and went into town to do some weekend shopping. However, they only went to stores that refused to allow Negroes to shop there at all anymore and before handling any of the merchandise, they removed their gloves and slit all their fingertips with razor blades. After handling the merchandise, they then quietly left the stores and returned home. They saw the bloodying of the merchandise as a symbolic gesture reflecting the bloody treatment of marchers the week before in Selma. I have often visualized those young Southern girls dressed in heels, hats, and hose and thought about how much courage such an act required. Dr. King later stated in his 1967 speech, “Declaration of Independence for the War in Vietnam” in that, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces the beggar needs restructuring” (King 2002). I think there were many, such as my professor and her young friends who had made that realization after they were sickened by the treatment of fellow human beings and knew that compassion required them to act.

Gandhi also said, “The law of love will work, just as the law of gravitation will work, whether we accept it or not” (Gandhi 2002). It is disturbing to me that time and time again, we hear that nonviolent protestors are extremist, but war is seen as an institution. So often throughout history, humanity has accepted the status quo simply because to admit that we needed to stop and reconsider might cause us some inconvenience. It is the momentum behind the status quo that slows change, whether that change is for better or worse. There is also fear because with all change comes consequences other than those that were intended. However, when one can see that a current situation is unjust, such as in the case of segregation, there is no option but change. Change must occur and because nonviolent resistance is more in line with just law (as Dr. King described it) than violent resistance, it is the most effective means to this end. Nonviolent resistance is a code than requires the majority to uphold the same standards for themselves as they hold for the minority, and should the minority not wish to participate in this resistance, they are free not to do so.

In Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, one of the main characters Hank Rearden makes the following observation after having engaged in an act of nonviolent resistance: “He felt as if, after a journey of years through a landscape of devastation…he had come upon the despoiler, expecting to find a giant – and had found a rat eager to scurry for cover at the first sound of a human step. If this is what has beaten us, he thought, the guilt is ours” (Rand 1996).

There are moments recorded throughout history when an individual experienced such a revelation. Dr. King is but one example, as are the individual examples such as Jesus, Amos, Paul and Thomas Jefferson that he cited is his essay. It is said that when Gandhi was thrown off the train in South Africa, as he lifted himself off the ground, he beheld a vision of the entire British Empire crumbling. What makes a society just is its eventual recognition of the validity of the visions of such individuals and the courage to embrace these visions and make them a reality.

Reference List
Easwaran, Eknath, translator. 1987. The Upanishads. Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. 2002. My faith in nonviolence (1930). The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by the Advocates of Peace. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. 2002. Declaration of independence for the war in Vietnam (1967). The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by the Advocates of Peace. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Rand, Ayn. 1996. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Signet.