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Mlk Birmingham

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Submitted By scstahl88
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Comparative Religious Ethics
April 1, 2015
King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham jail is known to be an influential piece as it brings so many issues to light. Sitting at a desk in his jail cell in Birmingham, King shares his thoughts and ideas of his nonviolent direct actions because “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (King). King addresses his opposition of clergymen with strategic points and explains his four basic process of nonviolence towards equality with collecting facts to determine whether injustice exists, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action.
Knowing that much of the white population would not respond to the appeals to conscience, King realized that even though love and respect was the goal, justice would have to come first because “one might not be able to legislate love but justice could be legislated” (Fasching 249). Injustice existed in Birmingham because “racial injustice [engulfed] this community” with an “ugly record of brutality” and “unjust treatment in the courts” (King), as it was known to be one of the most segregated cities in the United States. More unsolved bombing of African American homes and churches were in Birmingham than in any other city in the state. More injustice is shown with police “dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes” (King). More unjust and inhumane treatment are shown by the pushing, cursing, slapping, and kicking of old and young African Americans by policemen and other people who disrespected them. Because of the brutality of these treatments towards innocent people, King and other African American leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers, but the city fathers refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.
King and some of his people talked with leaders of Birmingham’s economic community and through theses

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