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Thematic Connections Between Lao-Tzu's Tao-te Ching & Martin


" This single sentence explains why the Negro community has abandoned the great Way and has taken to the side paths (since they were left with no alternative). The side paths, as referring to in this particular passage, is to the demonstrations and nonviolent campaign the Negro community then embarked upon. "In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action," King goes on to write in his letter. The Negro community, as a whole, had gone through these four steps, already, in Birmingham. .
             In reference to Lao-Tzu, they tried their best at approaching that great Way, and didn't even really prefer the side paths in this instance, yet were left with no other choice. Since negotiations with leaders of Birmingham's economic community failed (because their promises for bringing about change were soon broken), they "had no alternative expect to prepare for direction action, whereby [they] would present [their] very bodies as a means of laying [their] case before the conscience of the local and the national community." There is no doubt that they expected this route, the side path, to be harder (since the opposite of the great Way-which is easy-could only be expected to be a more problematical journey). But, this was a choice they had to make, as to bring about change and end the racism, being their chief goal in mind all the while.
             This same racism that they so strongly opposed, someone must have created in the first place. Since it is sometimes easier to follow the crowd and be destructive when in a larger group, things like racism are able to exist in a society. In passage twelve of "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr. notes " groups tend to be more immoral than individuals." This is true since the notion of there being a certain strength in numbers, is also very legitimate.


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