Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr - Essay Example

As a religious man, King Luther believed in non-violent ways of solving societal problems. He wanted to badly end racial segregation. To tackle this, Martin Luther had a movement under his management which followed the four steps in trying to achieve its prime objectives of a free and fair state of living. The first was to ensure that the facts or circumstances surrounding an injustice showed the existence of injustice. This step was not had to prove since, in places such as the south, signs were visible certain areas with segregating writings such “white” and  ” colored” to represent the black community and white community regions.

Perpetrators of many different forms of violence were not brought to justice even when they were acknowledged. Next in the steps was initiating negotiations. According to this letter, King says that his talks with a local merchant to lead to promises that demarcation of white and colored sections of the street would stop. In the beginning, the promises seemed to be coming true but the sign later returned and the situation before the negotiation came back to existence. The third step involved self-purification which was designed to ensure that those who were behind King's course to end segregation were not susceptible to both physical and verbal abuse aimed at making them retaliates from their objective.

The third step was quite crucial since it would equip them with courage for mass action, sit-ins and marches. In the literature, Luther uses examples to strengthen his though. This is by him comparing the unjust system of the USA and that which existed during Hitler’s era in Germany. Hitler had the power and legal right to make laws. He made laws which were unfair towards Jews. Jews fled to Austria where they were hid from Nazis. By this, Austrians acted against stipulations of the law but were justifiable since the rule of the law was unjust and immoral.

Kings compares his actions to be as such since he was opposed to laws which advocated or created room for unjust segregation.