Pinson, Hali: Diversity

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most important people in American history. He was a peaceful, nonviolent civil rights activist who stood for the rights of every citizen and worked for equality for African Americans. Eight clergy from white churches wrote “A Call for Unity,” saying that Dr. King’s actions were “unwise and untimely;” to which he replied with his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He explained that just because something was a law did not make it fair to all people. The timing of his actions was very justified. The situation in Birmingham was reaching a boiling point and needed a single push to either help or hurt civil rights. Instead of rioting, molesting officials, or defacing public or private properties, the demonstrators simply refused to follow the laws that oppressed and abused them as African Americans. Furthermore, they accepted the consequences of their actions and peacefully submitted to the officials: Dr. King did not fight his jail sentence since he knew that he had broken the law, just or not. Dr. King used the example of Hitler’s law stating that any man caught helping the Jews would be put to death as an unjust law that men ignored out of a moral sense of right and wrong. The Hungarian Freedom Fighters ignored Hitler’s biased law because they knew that it was unjust and therefore not upholding it was the right thing to do. Dr. Martin Luther King was just in his actions, as well as in his moral integrity, and using his leadership and charisma was what kept the Civil Rights movement moving forward. If Dr. King had attempted to use violence or force, nothing that he accomplished would have been possible.