The Importance Of Civil Disobedience In Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s skills as a leader and an orator are renowned. His ability to move his audience and reach even those most strongly opposed to his view is unmatched. He once famously said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King 1). On its own, this statement is powerful, but the context behind it makes it all the more meaningful. In April of 1963, Dr. King was imprisoned in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting segregation without a permit. While he was in jail, eight white clergymen of the South wrote a public letter to him saying they supported his cause, but the nonviolent protest was “unwise and untimely” (King 1). King responded with a letter addressing their concerns by explaining his reasoning and perspective. Frustrated by the white clergymen’s call to wait and endure, King crafted a powerful rhetorical piece that called out the clergymen for their failure to live by their own ideals. However, the letter did not only inform the eight clergymen, it was later published in Liberation magazine, The Christian
Biblical quotes engage the clergymen, who have spent their lives studying the Bible, and dare them to compare knowledge and morals that they hold sacred. For example, to demonstrate how civil disobedience is morally just, King points to the Old Testament, “It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of the chopping blocks before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire,” (King 3). Comparing the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement to those of early Christians gives King the moral high ground and allows the clergymen to relate his struggle to a struggle to which they have devoted their