Critical Analysis: A Letter from Birmingham Jail

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such as literacy tests and poll taxes have barred blacks from voting. Then again there are laws that may have been generated for fair purposes and are manipulated to be used unfairly; King justifies this with the reasoning behind his incarceration, the first amendment grants him the right to peaceful protest, nevertheless requiring a permit to do so violates those rights and is exploited to uphold segregation. King expresses that his insubordination is nothing new in history; offering examples of people in the past that had to defy unjust laws with acts of “civil disobedience” such as the Boston Tea Party and the Christians rebelling from the Roman Empire. In the words of King “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.” Eight days after King’s arrest President Kennedy received a phone call from Mrs. Coretta Scott King concerned about her husband’s whereabouts; King was immediately released from Birmingham Jail. Amongst the support from Kennedy and King’s letter being aimed to a national audience; the civil rights movement began to gain drive owing to King’s ability to bring a precise, eloquent voice to an immense, muddled movement.

Once the Puritans began to journey to what would become established as the United States of America; they started their small societies in the new world constructed on republicanism, creating small agrarian communities that were centered around family, religion and grounded on civic virtue, the public good, and private interests. If America had continued to strive on these principles slavery would have never have flourished in the United States. As time progressed the people of the new world wanted to separate themselves from England and the Church. They believed government should be grounded on a checks and balance system to control arbitrary power especially that based on divine right. Nevertheless, during the American Revolution it was apparent that there was a separation between the Northern and the Southern states interests. The Southern states still clung to a relationship with the mother country while the Northern states were seeking to sustain republicanism and separate from the monarchy. This separation of interest would continue to divide the North from the South over the next one hundred years despite numerous attempts at compromise; ultimately sparking the Civil War. The South developed to what came to be an aristocracy dominated society based on holism and patriarchy. The South believed they provided their slaves with content lives and wanted to expand slavery; however, in the north the existence of slavery was fading threatening the way of life in the South. At some stage in the Civil War, owing to the enlightenment and scientific revolution, the republic society based on civic virtue began to shift to a democracy driven by the economy and equal opportunity and rights; forever changing life in the North and South. Despite the abolishment of slavery in 1865 due to the ratification of the 13th Amendment, blacks still experienced unequal rights and opportunity especially in the South. Slavery was an obsolete system that was incompatible with the goals of our Founding Fathers and the principles of Republicanism. Slavery was an outdated structure that had been long renounced in other countries; blacks have faced over 400 years of unequal rights in America thanks to the dying out of our founding values.

“Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.”

― Plato, The Republic