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What Is The Role Of Civil Disobedience In The Letter From Birmingham Jail

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On April 12, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama after nine days of peaceful protests, sit-ins, and marches against the current segregation. The same day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested, eight clergymen published a statement advising African American people to rebuttal their support for Dr. King and his future demonstrations. The clergymen published that Dr. King’s acts had brought hatred to the streets and it was unwise and untimely (Maranzani, 2013). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter from Birmingham Jail as a response to the clergymen’s statements. In this letter, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed matters of justice and injustice, eschatology, prophecy, and salvation in relevance to religion.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about social and racial justice and injustice by defining them in the Letter from Birmingham Jail. Dr. King believed that justice was a God-given right for every human being on Earth and that passive resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience were ways to obtain justice. Dr. King’s philosophy on the way to achieve justice was significantly influenced by Hinduism, specifically Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was an Indian civil rights leader and introduced Dr. King to the philosophy of passive resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience to evoke change. Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism all believe that the only way to evoke change in society is passive resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience “As a seminary

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