MLK entry

Wow. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is absolutely awesome. This was my first time reading it and...wow.

Where to start? The man was a rhetorical genius. His arguments seem unquestionably logical and founded in reason. He relates his points to other great thinkers like Socrates, the apostle Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and the list goes on. How amazingly brilliant to ground your argument in Christian thought when your opposition claims to be ardently Christian (in this case fellow clergymen objecting to King's methods). The section where King explains just and unjust laws stands out in my mind. He differentiates between breaking a just law and an unjust law, and even says that those who break unjust law lovingly and in the open do so with a heightened respect for the law itself. It's a great way to frame civil rights protests. The fact that King had to actually justify why he objected to such widespread cultural notions never really occurred to me. I know that sounds silly, but I'd always pictured people actually knew what was up, they just were kind of hesitant to do anything about it. But no, unsurprisingly King lays out his argument for why unjust laws should be opposed through non-violent means and of course grounds it in biblical reference. Completely awesome.

The voice he uses in his paper is so calm and objective, yet injected with impassioned sections as well. He maintains his integrity and rationale without losing his passion. For example, his descriptions of how black citizens were treated in Birmingham. Probably the most poignant description for me was King having to tell his daughter why they can't go to an amusement park, and seeing the change in her; the resentment of whites forming and the "scarring" of her personality. It exploits with razor-sharp precision that protective instinct I, and I'd like to think most people, have with regard to a child's welfare.

Good stuff, to say the least.