PBFF - Letter From Birmingham City Jail

Passage from Letter From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts)

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without legal and

nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give

up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and give up their unjust posture;

but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

      This passage is located rather early within the text. He sets up the passage by talking about direct-action and how these "sit-ins" and public marches may not seem effective but once a big enough following is accumulated, the opposition has no other choice but to negotiate due to crisis or tension. That is exactly what Dr. King intended. The first line highlights the fact that everything that has been accomplished and will be accomplished has been through non-violent protest. This is a cornerstone of the Civil Rights movement and a message that Dr. King consistently preached to his fellow protestors.

      While he was writing this letter, tt's almost as if, to me at least, that Dr. King knows that he has won the civil rights battle and felt like rubbing it in their faces, for lack of a better phrase. People resort to violence when they either have nothing else to say to rebuttal a statement/argument or they resort to violence because they have lost an argument. He's got them right where he wants them. If the black people chose to use violence; fight fire with fire, then all would have been for naught. Violence can be closely related to fear. The white people in America were afraid that they might have to compete against the black people in life. So they decided to resort to violence. They thought that maybe since black people didn't have a "voice" they should stop them before they ever did.