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Unit 3: Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

4. Five days after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, where did massive riots erupt? Notes

(a) Watts, California (b) Trenton, New Jersey
(c) Detroit, Michigan (d) Chicago, Illinois
5. To what city did King move at the beginning of 1966?
(a) Watts, California (b) Trenton, New Jersey

(c) Detroit, Michigan (d) Chicago, Illinois

3.6 Summary

• In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. creates a ringing response
to a statement by some Alabama clergymen opposing his actions in Birmingham, Alabama.
The initial explanation of why King is in Birmingham later becomes the background to
an essay justifying King’s civil disobedience and explaining the wrongfulness of racial
segregation. Throughout the essay, King uses several literary tools which create a powerful
tone to complement his strong opinions. He uses comparisons to help the reader understand
not only the historical reasons why segregation is wrong, but the costly emotional
effects that it has on everyone who experiences it. King also uses realistic examples to
show the reader how segregation damages one’s character. His terminology creates a
clear definition between whites and blacks as segregator and segregated. As shown in
this piece, King’s skill for expressing his ideas in writing has caused him to be considered
one of America’s greatest communicators.

• King’s use of comparison in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” makes the African-American’s
plight of segregation seem almost holy. First, King compares his “gospel of freedom”
to the gospel of eighth-century prophets and the Apostle Paul. Later, he compares
being arrested for his peaceful but illegal actions to the crucifixion of Jesus for his
“unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion.” King also connects himself to
God by implying that above constitutional rights and legal laws are God-given rights,
and these rights are the ones that he and his followers are supporting. He states that
just laws are laws that “square with the moral law or the law of God.”
• King continues this religious connection in his last paragraph, where he refers to blacks
who conduct sit-ins as “children of God” who stand up for “the most sacred values in
our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Another comparison is made between King and Socrates,
who was condemned for his ideas and forced to drink poison. These comparisons make
Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers seem to be fighting an almost divine cause,
one that has the support of God and of history.
• King also uses his writing to evoke emotion. Aside from his comparisons to God and
Socrates, which may help religious readers better connect to his message, King writes
about the emotional suffering that blacks went through due to segregation and prejudice.
He responds to whites telling blacks to “wait” for desegregation by mentioning several
atrocities committed by whites on blacks, including lynching, drowning, and police
brutality.
• He continues on these emotional lines by expressing how children begin to become
deeply affected by segregation when they realize that they are considered inferior to
whites. King uses specific examples, such as a daughter who finds out that she can’t
visit an amusement park because it is closed to coloured children, and a son who asks,
“Daddy, why do white people treat coloured people so mean?” He shows how the
build-up of these feelings in black children eventually turn into hatred for whites when

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