Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From A Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is directed towards the clergymen, although America is his audience, King had come to Birmingham to address the segregation problem in the United States. He refuses to stay silent, even though people told him to wait for the change to happen. King is a part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that has many organizations across the South. He felt that he has a right to be in Birmingham because his organizations have connections with it. King believes in peaceful and nonviolent protests although policemen and many other people used violent and brutal tactics against him and his people. Martin Luther King Jr. argues that people of other races should be more accepting of him

Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas K. Gandhi were civil rights activists who practiced a form of movement to gain equal rights amongst their nation. King and Gandhi were most important for their allegiance to nonviolence. King demonstrated his notion of nonviolence in his letter titled, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", and Gandhi in his writing, "from Non- Violent Resistance". The two are closely related and share common and distinct themes; both held considerably comparable belief toward nonviolence, laws, and religion.

In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail because he and others were protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama. On the day of his arrest, a group of clergymen wrote an open letter in which they called for the community calling King’s activities as “unwise and untimely” (601) which causes crisis in the community. It was that letter that encouraged King to write the famous written communication known as “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. King uses ethical, logical, and pathetic appeals to address against racial injustice among Black Americans in Birmingham and to responds to the issue and criticism that a group of white clergymen had thrown at him and his pro-black American organization.

Dr. Martin Luther King, one of the most influential men in the world, had played a pivotal role during the Civil Rights movement. He led the entire nation in the fight to end segregation, but while trying, he faced many obstacles, one being getting arrested during a rally. While in jail, King had time to respond to the critics of his work in the movement, and he wrote a marvelous, captivating response. In King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he replied and professed his emotions to the white clergymen 's stance on his non-violent organization. In the tense racial south, Martin Luther King Jr. made a brave choice to speak out about the injustice occurring in the city of Birmingham, and explained his steps on how it should be fixed, and displayed the purpose of why it needed to be stopped, or else the frightful actions towards the African-American community will not only continue to flood in the streets of Birmingham, it would continue in the rest of the world. As he discussed these broad discussions, King managed to use rhetorical devices throughout his letter, as well as establish different modes of persuasion.

He believed there are two principles of justice. The first principle is that “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others” (Kramnick, 2009, pg. 1374). This means that all people have the basic human rights which results in the equal rights of all people. The second principle is that “social and economic inequalities” should be for the advantage of everyone and all positions and offices need to be open to all (Kramnick, 2009, pg. 1374). Rawls argued that if inequalities were to take place it should be for the advantage of everyone in society.

From its penning, John Rawls’ theory of Justice, states several foundational notions. First among them is the distinction that his concept of justice is not to give rise to any one specific form of governmental power or structure. It is simply the “principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association.” This crux of Rawls’ argument in the “Original Position” is the moniker of Justice as Fairness, which is rooted directly in the moment a shift

If pressed for the most simplistic one-sentence answer to how I viewed my understanding of this work I would not hesitate to exclaim, “The most conclusive qualitative argument for ‘justice as fairness’”. Notwithstanding, this simplistic review needs to be supported in a way that encourages others, who are inclined, to relish the challenge of critical discourse on the imperative questions of political philosophy raised by John Rawls.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss what ‘Fair Equality of Opportunity’ means and John Rawls view point on this subject. Rawls was a well known philosopher from the USA and arguably the most important political philosopher of the 20th century. Rawls is well known for using the basic structure of society as his subject matter and most famously for his work entitled, A Theory of Justice (1971). Here he explains how the “logical ordering of principles of justice can help to structure and regulate an ideal structure society” (John Rawls, 2003)

1a. In John Rawls: A theory of justice, Rawls state that you must imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. I would say another word for the veil of ignorance can be the curtain of the unknown. I would say the curtain of the unknown because the veil of ignorance is just like a curtain that is put up and behind it no one knows who they are. No one knows their race, their wealth status, their intelligence, their assets, nationality, etc. You know nothing about yourself or your natural abilities. Rawls put the original position behind a veil of ignorance so no one can is advantaged or dis advantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. The original position is the appropriate initial status quo in which the agreements reached inside the original position MUST be fair. The key word in the previously stated sentence is fair and that’s where the veil of ignorance comes in. For example, if a man knew he was wealthy, he might find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for welfare measures be counted unjust, if he knew he was poor he would most likely state the opposite. Both principles lead to unfairness for others which is against the original position which has to be fair. That’s why the veil of ignorance is an essential feature in the original position, so no one has a chance to impact the original position based off their class positon, race, intelligence, etc. The

(1) This paper poses the thesis that, from a Rawlsian perspective, justice in our modern day society is impossible, given simply the disparity between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor. (2) It further explores the problem of inequality in the United States. (3) It then analyzes Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness. (4) And finally, it assesses the prospect and possibility of justice as fairness in the real world. ===================

Rawls also argued, that priorities must be given to the needs of the disadvantaged. He was willing to tolerate inequalities in society if they were arranged so that they help the least advantaged members of society. This applies to possible inequalities in wealth and power because the disadvantaged aren’t priorities and they are forgotten about. Wealth and social position should be arranged to help disadvantaged people but aren’t being arranged to do so.

According to John Rawls ideology of justice is that it is equated to fairness. Rawls offers two principles of justice, the first being that each individual should have equal rights and opportunity to liberty. Secondly that

For the last section on Rawls views, I would like to discuss how the society functions once the foundation is set, and where the disabled fit into the blue prints. So far we can conclude that Rawls specific goal was to establish principles of political justice to govern the basic structures a society under reasonably favorable conditions that would be chosen in the original position among a various other principles. These principles allow for an idealized version of society that function based on the circumstances of justice that were given to the deciding parties in the original position. The question now is how do these principles function in actual rather than fictional society. For one, the people within the society need to comply to the political conception of justice. Meaning that all members of the society accept the decided principles of justice and that the institution within the society satisfy these principles. The citizens must also already have a comprehensive sense of justice that is in line with the societies sense of justice. So when they make choices and behave in certain ways and acquire certain beliefs, they do not fall out of line with the societies sense of justice but instead act from them. The last necessity for the society to function is that its citizens, according to Rawls, possess two moral powers: a capacity for a sense of justice and a capacity for the conception of good. These moral powers also contribute to the social cooperation of a society

With a limited availability of wealth and resources, all societies are posed with a common dilemma: how ought these goods be distributed among members of the community in a way that is just? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls, an influential political philosopher of the 20th century, attempts to provide a solution to this dilemma by presenting a hypothetical situation, known as the Original Position, in which multiple parties determine the principles that will constitute the basic structure of the society they will live in. In order to ensure that the party members make their choices impartially

Rawls’s theory of justice expresses our respect for one another by giving liberties and letting the better off benefit only in ways that benefit the worst off.