Anderson, Courtne: Diversity

“A Call for Unity” and Dr. King’s response “Letter from a Birmingham
Jail," made me think about many aspects of society and their flaws. A
 "Call for Unity" states that the civil rights movement leaders and the 
nonviolent protests caused unrest for the community, which King’s 
letter basically mocks. Not only does King point out the ignorance of
 the clergymen for being against the nonviolent acts, he also makes a
 very valid statement about the behavior of modern day churches and their
 focus points.
 

A "Call to Unity," honestly, made me a little mad. The protesters were 
not breaking laws to be rebellious or to  upset anyone purposely. The 
protesters simply wanted the rights that should have been guaranteed
 in the Constitution and by God’s natural law. Blacks were freed from 
slavery with the Proclamation of 1863, and Black males were even given 
the right to vote in 1870, yet they were still being treated as if they 
weren’t even people.  The clergymen were trying to prevent more 
protests by trying to make the activists appear to be more radical 
than they were.
 

Martin Luther King Jr., however, proved that the clergymen were being 
very ignorant in their letter. King wasn’t being radical or extreme or 
rebellious even, he was just trying to make a better society for his 
race. He never intentionally broke the law, but he believed that breaking
 man’s law was more acceptable than breaking his moral law of what he 
believed to be true. King made very profound statements about how the 
Christian church was responding to the civil rights movement in
 addition to his statements about how ridiculous many in the White
 society in the South were. The Christian church should have been 100%
 behind the civil rights activists and should have been trying their
 best to make the African Americans socially equal to Whites. 
However, the churches stood in the background and observed what was 
happening around them instead of pushing for what was morally right 
and what is seen as God’s natural law. The Church cared too much about 
how it would be viewed and stayed out of the action. This is how many
 churches are today, they are too lax about controversial issues and do 
not make a point to help what should morally be accepted.
 

“A Call to Unity” and the response in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
 both triggered me to feel sympathy for the society in the 1960s and 
caused me to think more about social issues as a whole.