ABOUT
Peaceful resistance, if effective, is one of the most impressive forms of sedition. Almost any leader can support violence and bloodshed, throughout history this is not uncommon, but leaders who execute extreme prudence and non-violent civil disobedience are rare. Among those leaders who practiced peaceful resistance—Christ, Gandhi, Socrates—Martin Luther King Jr. should be recognized. As one of the leaders of the American Civil Rights movement, King was the mastermind of a movement that would bring necessary social change to a nation founded on a simple axiom, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights….”
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
While NAACP was actively attacking segregation through the court system, King launched an assault on the Jim Crow South through non-violent resistance. In his Letter from the Birmingham City Jail you can see King’s impatience with black and white moderates, showing that he was moving from his moderate approach to social problems (as was displayed with the bus boycotts) to something more aggressive. This was likely because of the growing popularity of militant black power groups. What happened in Birmingham was termed as “peaceful coercion,” a strategy that aimed not at changing the mood of the people but instead demonstrating the ugliness of segregation.
MY ANALYSIS
Dr. King’s letter was as much a manifesto of political theory as it was a compelling argument for desegregation. As far as political theory, King’s letter is a synthesis of social activism (associated with the Social Gospel) and Christian morality (he was, after all, a minister). The recipients of this letter represented a group that wanted change but did not encourage the active, and often illegal, role King was taking. Nevertheless, “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law. You might say that King expressed “the very highest respect for the law.”
The goal was to expose the brutality of segregation. The efforts in Birmingham did just that: broadcasters displayed firefighters spraying children with high powered hoses and images of innocent protesters being brought down by police attack dogs. For the first time, northerners and moderates were seeing for themselves that the bank of justice was indeed bankrupt.
This, of course, begs a question: what is justice? As Dr. King writes, “The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just and there are unjust laws.” A good dichotomy, but it does not answer the question. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” This statement is full of important points. First, the Civil Rights movement, according to Martin Luther King Jr., was rooted in Christianity. And, in citing Thomas Aquinas in the letter, rooted in the philosophical legacy of Western Civilization. Second, the law of God is the law of nature; a “just law” must necessarily be compatible with the law of nature. This should remind you of Bastiat, when he implied that justice is the protection of life, liberty and property. In other words, justice means abiding by natural law. Third, King makes the fight for Civil Rights into a moral struggle, as did Lincoln for the abolition of slavery and as Reagan would for the defeat of Communism. Finally, the fight is for justice. Not necessarily equality (justice is slightly less protean than equality).
Perhaps most important is that “An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself.” If you accept that, then you should apply that to other government policies. Take the redistribution of wealth. If the majority plunders a wealthy minority, it is unjust (according to King). However, if that majority was willing to take on an equal burden, the law is now just.
If a law is unjust, it is also unjust to abide by the law. King argued that “the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klus Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice…” Those who stand silent when they see or hear an injustice are those who are willing to sacrifice a “positive peace” in the name of a “negative peace.” To watch idly as millions march in Tehran, or as Chinese tanks run over a protester or as a Buddhist monk drenches himself in petroleum and lights a match—this true evil. After all, “we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”
One great point that King makes is the exceptional nature of liberty. For him, and his moral struggle to secure the principles of the Declaration, what is right will ultimately come true. Indeed, “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.” A pretty cool idea: perhaps if a cause is right it will always survive. The liberty conceived by the founders and enjoyed by millions may indeed survive. Welcome to American Exceptionalism 101. “We will reach toe goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.” King recognized that this freedom, which makes America such a beautiful and unique country, is the product of thousands of years of Western development. Progressing, of course, to the first of our 15 readings.
Today is an era where many believe the true legacy of the founders was their “inherent racism.” In the name of multiculturalism our Western Heritage is discarded to not offend others (particularly anti-west cultures). Schools teach classes on “World Cultures” before even touching Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, or Scripture. Some may not teach Western Civilization at all. Yet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attributes the greatness of the United States to “the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence.” After all, “One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.” He sounds like a conservative.
[...] Letter From Birmingham City Jail [...]