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An Analysis Of Martin Luther King's 'Letter From Birmingham Jail'

Decent Essays

Collection Six deals with the idea of freedom. The texts included in the collection are “Letter to Viceroy, Lord Irwin”; “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; Things Fall Apart; “Bile”; and the Gandhi documentary. The essential question associated with this unit is “What constitutes true freedom?” The simple answer to this question is equality and political and religious freedom. To begin with, the first component of true freedom is equality. Equality for every race, gender, everything. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes a sixteen-page-long letter to his fellow clergymen, berating them for not siding with the African-Americans in their fight for rights. Dr. King was at the same level in the church as these clergymen, and they still disapproved of his actions …show more content…

In lines 137-139, Dr. King states, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Every word of his letter very strongly expresses his passion for the Civil Rights Movement and how much he wanted equality to be in effect in the United States. Can you see how important equality is in the grand scheme of true freedom? Furthermore, freedom of religion is a main factor in determining true freedom. In the novel Things Fall Apart, a clan in 19th century Nigeria must deal with the effects of a large group of white Englishmen trying to convert the Africans to Christianity. The main character, Okonkwo, is exiled to his mother’s clan for seven years after he accidentally kills a fellow clan member. While he and his family are staying in Mbanta, they receive word that Abame, a neighboring

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