Notes on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)

1. Notes on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)

2. Some Preliminary Questions • What was the situation in Birmingham in 1963? • What was “Operation C”? Was it successful? • Why did King write his letter? Who was his intended audience?

3. Main Points in King’s Letter • Four Steps of any Nonviolent Campaign • Distinction between Just and Unjust Laws • Nonviolent Resistance as a Middle Path between Passivity and Violent Resistance • The Nature of Time

4. Four Basic Steps in any Nonviolent Campaign • Collection of the Facts • Negotiation • Self-Purification • Direct Action

5. Unjust and Just Laws • An unjust law is one “out of harmony with the moral law.” • “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” • Application to segregation • A law is unjust if a minority group forced to obey but didn’t help enact, or if the majority doesn’t have to follow it, or if it is unfairly applied in practice.

6. Nonviolent Resistance • “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” • King stresses the need for “creative extremism” that avoids both the “do-nothingism” of the complacent or apathetic and the “despair” of mindless violence.

7. The Nature of Time • A “tragic misconception of time” that change will come about inevitably; King insists that “time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively....Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.” • “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”