Martin Luther King Jr. was an extremely important figure in the African-American fight for civil rights. He was an advocate of peaceful protest and firm believer that all people should have the same rights. King was a very active protestor; some even called him an extremist. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written from inside a cell in Birmingham Jail. King was arrested for one of his protests in that city and thrown in jail. The letter is to King’s fellow Clergymen who wrongly called his recent activities “unwise and untimely”. If it were not for people like Martin Luther King Jr., society would still be as segregated as it was in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Segregation was everywhere, but it was the strongest in the south. Every state had its own laws for “dealing” with the blacks. Whenever a new state legislature was elected, hope rose that the laws would be repealed, but this was unlikely since the blacks were not allowed to vote. Nearly everything in the south was segregated from schools, to diner

In conclusion, the clergymen who made the statement condoning King’s actions were at no position to criticize the methods of a man with the best interests of his fellow people in mind. The white clergymen knew that the segregation had to be stopped; however, they did not have the same perspective on the situation as King did since they were not black.

King uses the excuse that his actions were just since he was fighting an unjust law. He defines segregation and unjust laws like this “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority” (King, 146), “An unjust law is a code that a numerical power or majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself” (King, 147). It is the nature of unjust laws that make them prone to be broken. King and his followers were arrested but there is no doubt that t

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