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Summary
A rhetorical shift occurs at the start of paragraph 23. King addresses his critics directly, shifting from explanation to complaint. He confesses, first, his profound disappointment with moderate white people. It is no surprise that members of hate groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, oppose desegregation, King argues, but their resistance is not nearly as problematic as the preference of moderate white people for order and comfort. King lodges several specific complaints about white moderates. First, he deplores their failure to understand what justice denied means for a society. Second, he points to the flawed logic of their condemnation of peaceful protests as the cause of subsequent violence. And, finally, he stresses their misconceptions about time and its implications for social relations.
King’s complaints culminate in a final, and most important, claim—his rejection of the charge that he is an extremist. Across several paragraphs, he explains why it is not extreme to work for freedom, while he also points out that there are Black activists whose philosophy differs fundamentally from his. Singling out Elijah Muhammad, King argues that his movement prioritizes frustration and anger, emerging from a lack of faith in the United States. Nonviolent protest is, King indicates, more likely to keep the peace and to result in justice. For these reasons, white moderates are wrong when they reject its methods. To wish that justice will simply appear without effort or struggle is foolish, as is the belief that Black people will wait endlessly for their rights, he explains. King notes in conclusion that if he is to be called an extremist, he will gladly embrace the term if he can be an extremist for love, not hate. He mentions several white allies who have risked a great deal for the civil rights movement and urges his readers to join the fight against segregation.
King’s second critical confession concerns his equally strong disappointment with the white church. A minister himself, King insists that any gospel divorced from society is diminished and warped, merely providing cover for an institution which cowers impotently in empty houses of worship. Only by enacting the principles Jesus and his disciples articulate in the Bible is religion relieved from what he dubs “sanctimonious trivialities.” Unlike the early Christians, who fought for a church that understood the true basis of religious authority—belief, not money or influence—white clergy in the South have capitulated to unjust laws and unequal treatment. The houses of worship King sees as he travels the South are beautiful, but their values are not, for they defend the status quo rather than the sufferers. These moral and spiritual failings lead King to assert that God’s judgment will continue to fall upon these religious institutions, already diminishing in authority in their communities, unless they change their ways and recognize that the struggle against segregation is no different than other trials in American history.
Before closing, King dedicates several paragraphs to his critics’ praise for the Birmingham police, particularly the restraint police supposedly show and their nonviolent methods. King again wonders why these critics pay no attention to what the protesters endure in their efforts to win equal rights or have endured across decades of often-violent segregation. He ends the letter with a plea for brotherhood, both with his critics and broadly within the United States. Comparing racial prejudice to a fog, he hopes that its clouds will be lifted, allowing love and fellowship to shine over the nation.
Analysis
King’s assertion that white moderates are a greater impediment to social change than committed racists is arguably the most famous part of “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” He couches this argument as a confession, one that he is disappointed to have to share with his readers. This rhetorical strategy softens its presentation without diminishing the claim he makes. Still, he does not hesitate to assert that “shallow understanding” from people with good intentions is more difficult to understand, and detrimental to the movement, than the clear denials that come from racists or people of ill will. To claim to support the expansion of rights, but to reject all of the ways of achieving this end, is demoralizing and frustrating, King insists.
Throughout this section of the letter King’s tone is arch as he expresses his surprise at what his purported allies think. First, he notes that law and order, when predicated on injustice, will impede social progress. Not only is the creation of tension necessary, he continues, but it is only a fraction of what the Black population must endure as a result of mistreatment. He likewise stresses the logical fallacy of deploring the violence that nonviolent protests sometimes cause. In each of these different facets of the argument, King uses logic and emotion to show the limitation of the white moderate’s thinking. Most important, though, is the pervasive idea that time will cure the problem. King notes that work is always necessary to achieve anything of merit, including social justice. In stressing the value of labor, King here uses a basic principle of American mythology—the celebration of hard work—as an example of the protesters’ commitment to the nation and its values. Others might reject what the United States stands for, as the reference to Elijah Muhammad makes clear, but King and his followers want only to be afforded the basic rights all Americans should have.
King next turns to a denunciation of the white church, raising at the same time critical questions about the purpose of religion. According to King, religious faith exists not just to comfort those who are comfortable or powerful but also to elevate the oppressed and ease their suffering. Its influence should not be confined to being felt only in churches or during worship but should be fundamental to the way people understand their relationships and obligations to others. Here readers can see another way that King uses the symbol of imprisonment in the letter. When religion is confined, it becomes powerless and, worse, a force for conformity and complacency. When he asserts that God will judge the white church for its failures, King draws on a kind of writing that is common across American history, the jeremiad. Sermons of this kind lament bitterly how a society or institution has fallen short of its ideals and ambitions, predicting future failure unless it changes its ways. As he addresses his critics, King uses the jeremiad form to stress the decline of the church, figured through the “disgust” of young people. He promises that it will continue to diminish in moral value and social importance if it persists in supporting a morally corrupt status quo.
21st-century readers might take note of King’s discussion of police violence, a social problem that has been the subject of much debate in recent years. King stresses the threat police brutality poses to Black Americans, as he rejects the idea that the Birmingham police deserve praise for their restraint. No one who has faced snarling police dogs would find much to praise, King explains. Although it is not part of “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” it is worth noting that police brutality did erupt the following week at the protests and the tactics employed had an important influence on public opinion about segregation. Given that he wrote the letter in the middle of the Birmingham campaign, King obviously cannot know for certain what was to come, but he was right and justified in expressing skepticism about the behavior of the Birmingham police.
King’s judgments about Birmingham’s institutions, white moderates, and the white church do not make this an angry or bitter text. Instead, it returns consistently to hope. Even when King asserts that he was perhaps too optimistic about what white people would do to support Black people, he still presents his disappointments in ways that welcome people to join the cause. Although he indicates that Black Americans have been denied full access to freedom and civil rights for hundreds of years, he does not reject the United States or American ideals. Instead, King indicates that the future of the nation can be bright, if it fully embraces the principles articulated in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The letter’s final paragraph imagines clouds lifting to reveal a beautiful starry sky. King ends with hope, as he envisions a radiant future with expansive possibilities, once freedom is truly given to all citizens of the United States.
