Plunk, Allen: Diversity

America in the 1960s was a country filled with many types of protest for various reasons, but none more significant than the Civil Rights Movement. Led by upstanding Black Americans such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, these movements used sit ins, marches in the streets, and other forms of protest. These could be seen all throughout the southern part of the country especially in the states of Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama.
  
In “A Call for Unity,” a letter written by eight White clergymen from Birmingham, Alabama, they asked the "Negro" community to abort their support of the protest going on and to participate in legislative means of reconciling with the White community. What the Blacks are doing they wrote, even though their protest are peaceful and non-violent, was only increasing the hate and resentment towards them. The letter also asked that the Black community allow the local judiciary system to work out the problems within the courts.
   
Honestly, I believe that the protests were causing attention to be drawn to Birmingham and the locals knew that to keep the city in their power that they had to stop the movement. If they could convince the movement leaders that the local government would handle the problems then the Whites in power could stay there and keep Birmingham as it had been for hundreds of years.
   
In his response to this letter Dr. King, who was in a Birmingham jail at this time, wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In it King saw right through the clergymen’s promises and tells them that the Negro had been told to “Wait!” for so many years before and nothing had changed. He also noted that even though there was a new mayor in town he was still, nonetheless, a segregationist. I agree with King’s comments that it was the normal, moderate, white citizen, not the Ku Klux Klan or any other white extremist organization, that was holding back the Black’s freedom to live a life fit for an American citizen.
   
In short the white clergymen, in my opinion, were only trying to calm down the protest to regain control of the city so they could maintain their lifestyles. Dr. King rejected all of their suggestions with valid evidence on why they had never been effective and never would. I agree one hundred percent with Dr. King on the tactics he used to get the movements point across and in the end his intelligence and wisdom is what led to the true freedom of the African-American race.