payment page
“History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”
There are many ways of organizing historical narratives, and King indicates the one he thinks is most important in the above passage. The idea that protest is new or that the arguments of Black Americans are unusual is rejected in King’s way of arranging historical facts. Not only have similar uprisings occurred across the span of human history, but King also suggests such uprisings have a shared cause. No matter the era, people in power have almost always withheld power from others as a means to retain their own. King calls this “tragic” to indicate that it is not necessary, although, it is almost always constant. In this quote, King suggests people in power could recognize that benefits can accrue from renouncing some of their privileges, though, too often this is not something they are either willing or able to do. By framing the Birmingham campaign in the context of this long history, King elevates it and its participants, putting both on the level with other globally significant struggles for justice.
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in German was ‘legal’ and…[i]t was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers.”
In this passage, King uses an example from history, the “Final Solution” of Hitler’s Third Reich, to clarify why he is more interested in justice than legality. The divergence between the two concepts is a main theme of the letter, and here he uses a historical example to make his commitment to justice clear. King might have chosen this example because one of his unnamed critics was a rabbi. When he asserts that he would have helped Jewish people, he is suggesting that his concern is not merely for one group of people but rather for all who suffer under oppression. King demonstrates in this example and others in his letter that one must always be able to recognize, and act against, an unjust law.
“We have waited more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.”
In this passage, King reveals the duration over which Black Americans have waited to be granted the rights promised them by the Declaration of Independence. There is a specific meaning to the year he selects, 1623, as the beginning of this long wait. This is the approximate year (it was actually 1624) of William Tucker’s birth. Tucker was the son of indentured servants in Virginia and was the first Black person born in what would become the United States. Since this year, Black Americans had waited to be recognized as equal citizens or even to be treated as people. Enslaved people were considered property, and while slavery was abolished after the Civil War, conditions of profound inequality and prejudice persisted in other forms. King relies on this history as part of his explanation for why the wait must come to an end.
