Read the excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern.How does King rebut his critics’ claim?
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Read the excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice.Why does King use this allusion?
Read the excerpt from “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.Why does King use this allusion?
Read the excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. How does King support this claim?
Read the excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”Just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.Why does King use this allusion?
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just.
You suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children.
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