Question

What is important about Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"? Select one: a. It outlined the principles of civil disobedience. b. It led to a large boycott of segregation in public transportation. c. It was the last thing he wrote before his assassination. d. It laid the foundation for color-blind principles.

Answer 1

Answer:

a. It outlined the principles of civil disobedience.

Explanation:

Written by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" represents the most emblematic document of the struggle for civil rights of the African American minority of the United States. In it, King fraternally answers the open letter (A Call for Unity) of eight clergymen asking the population to withdraw their support for foreign-led protests — referring to the organization “Conference for Christian Leadership in the South,” chaired by the Reverend. In their “Call to Unity,” published in a local newspaper, clerics (all white) complain that mobilizations do not help solve “racial problems” and argue that it is possible to propose a constructive approach that addresses rights in the courts, not in the streets. It is, somehow, a cold and distant call to the patience of "his" black community. Those who subscribe to the message qualify the protests led by the foreign reverend as foolish and inopportune.

Rather than being a thorough response to the criticism launched by local clergy to the protests, the "Letter from a Birmingham jail" is an effective plea - written under conditions of enormous symbolic burden - in which the Reverend King seeks to expose the nature of its direct nonviolent action program and its justification. In his communication, the reverend points out that the mobilizations seek to create a crisis that brings to the surface injustices that cannot be neglected any longer. Protests do not create tension, as their censors think, they expose it starkly.

According to King, civil disobedience is legitimate not only because it is a moral duty to oppose laws that are considered unfair, but because the legal consequences of transgressing order are openly accepted. By using his person, his freedom, to call attention to the existence of injustice, the civil disobedient appeals to the solidarity consciousness of the community. The social protest does not violate the order to blackmail the system but peacefully seeks to shake those who with their apathy and silence become accomplices.