But this does not mean that what they did was moral: quite the opposite. He points out that everything Hitler did in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s was ‘legal’, because the Nazis changed the laws to suit their ideology and political aims. This question of what is a ‘just’ law and what is an ‘unjust’ law is central to King’s defence of his political approach as laid out in the letter from Birmingham Jail. Another inspiration for King was Henry David Thoreau, whose 1849 essay ‘ Civil Disobedience’ called for ordinary citizens to refuse to obey laws which they consider unjust. In this, Martin Luther King was greatly influenced by the example of Mahatma Gandhi, who had led the Indian struggle for independence earlier in the twentieth century, advocating for nonviolent resistance to British rule in India.
The emphasis throughout is non nonviolent action, or peaceful protest, which King favours rather than violent acts such as rioting (which, he points out, will alienate many Americans who might otherwise support the cause for racial integration). King answers each of the clergymen’s objections in turn, laying out his argument in calm, rational, but rhetorically brilliant prose. It is also a well-known defence of the notion of civil disobedience, or refusing to obey laws which are immoral or unjust, often through peaceful protest and collective action. Martin Luther King’s open letter written from Birmingham Jail is one of the most famous open letters in the world. He provides several examples of the quiet courage shown by those who had engaged in nonviolent protest in the South. Martin Luther King concludes his letter by arguing that he and his fellow civil rights activists will achieve their freedom, because the goal of America as a nation has always been freedom, going back to the founding of the United States almost two centuries earlier.
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