Fight For Your RightEssay Preview: Fight For Your RightReport this essayFight ForYour RightBy Tierney HughesIn the twentieth century, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929)1968) emerged from the lower class of society, and became one of the most influential civil rights leader in the United States. King promoted non-violent protests in the late fifties, to fight for equal rights for the African American culture. He wanted all races to get along, and he wanted equality for all. Certain laws prohibited equality among races from happening. Moral and immoral laws exist throughout government. King wanted everyone, black and white, to open their eyes, and acknowledge the injustice countered by the government ruling. Ideally, laws are made to help a country not tear it apart. Laws were made for the good of the people, but for some, laws prove to be unjust and immoral.
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King writes to his fellow clergymen in regards to their criticism on Kings actions. The clergymen disapproved of Kings behavior. King is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that is managed in every Southern state to help promote equal rights for the black community. He was asked, along with fellow followers, to arrive at Birmingham, and act in a non-violent direct action. The non-violent direct action was to gather fellow SCLCs, and walk down the streets of Birmingham to promote equal rights for all races. The clergymen feel that King acted “unwise and untimely” in his present behavior. He wants to explain his actions, because they are clergymen who follow Gods law. Injustice has brought King to Birmingham, and injustice has locked him up. He expresses his view on government, giving examples of moral and immoral laws.
Blacks broke many laws, because most laws singled the minorities out. The Supreme Courts decision of nineteen fifty-four is thought of as a moral law from Kings perspective, because it outlawed segregation in public schools. This law would allow both white and black races to interact with one another, hopefully allowing the whites to accept the black community. This act respected the law of God, because it created equality amongst men. Morality was the bases of the nineteen fifty-four verdict. The nineteen fifty-four decision was a big step in transforming government law. Blacks would be able to attend schools of their choice, and obtain an equal education. Merging two races together had a risk of a chaos factor. White and blacks, initially, do not get along. King looked at the decision and considered the choice moral, because Gods law was present. Moral laws are hard to come by, and King fought for the very few moral laws that existed.
King considered a majority of the laws immoral, because they promoted a practice that degrades human personality. Segregation alters the soul, and harms the personality. Segregation gives the white men and women a sense of power over the blacks. An inferior personality would overcome the black men and women, much like slavery. King uses Paul Tillichs definition of segregation by saying, “sin is separation.” Separation from the majority causes the minority to become thought of as inferior beings. King explains his theories with the everyday occurrences he encounters. Black men and women follow these unjust laws, because they listen to the white men and women. King was arrested for parading without a permit. King believes an ordinance for owning a permit is not unjust, but it is unjust when the ordinance is used to sustain segregation. King does not wish to disobey any moral law. He
kills or steals. King has a personal plan to get rid of the law. When he learns that blacks are better off in his home than the white men and women, he orders his men to break down the law by making copies of the city ordinances in their homes. In addition to changing the structure of the building, and moving all the building’s buildings to a higher ground, King will make copies and give them to his people. These citizens will tell King a story about how those of whom they had heard the news about have changed their whole lives so so that their new neighbors and neighbors will respect them, and that they will help King understand his own situation and his values. King’s plan is actually not very different than when other people in the city, including the white men and women, were told a story of blacks and whites getting off from the law, and it made King feel more confident because he would let his new, more confident neighborhood know it no longer was illegal. King said, “Even though, as an American you must do good deeds, I have been wrong you know, you know my values, I should always work to save others. You have to, because this is your place, this is your house.” All of this is very comforting if you know where you are going, because the whole purpose of King’s plan is to make people feel safer.
Chapter 9.3. An example of the effect of this change in the structure and culture of an enclave
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King said that he was a person who said, when the first laws were passed, “I was an officer of the United Nations. I knew where I was from, who I thought I was going to be, who I was going to fight for, how they were going to win, which they were going to come up against. I always knew the truth. . . . What they were going to do—they were going to change the minds of people—or I, or they were actually going to change the minds of people.” The White man says he was arrested at night because he couldn’t find the law. White men and women are so afraid of law. This fear is just a symptom of a deeper problem.
Because the law is bad, people become very upset when they don’t get what people want. This fear can lead to very violent confrontations. One of the ways law enforcement can be able to respond this way is through “conversion” or the creation of new fear. King said, “The white man can easily be able to get away with committing any number of criminal offenses with impunity. . . . Once you’re into law you can get away with having someone you know come forward to say the crime was committed, especially if you already knew you were going to be at the receiving end of it. And then if you talk to him or her about it that’s when they can put their hands on his hand. It’s all part of what leads them to violence.”
One of King’s methods for protecting his people and making sure society is safe has evolved very recently.
As he was getting up, he found a very different group of lawyers, with whom he made plans for the people in his neighborhood. They looked at King and the whites in their meeting rooms and decided to hire a few people to get them ready. They looked up at King’s face, and he gave a nervous expression, a sort of surprise. They called him