Martin Luther King and Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence

In the Letter from Birmingham Jail written on 16 April 1963 when he was arrested for a non-violent demonstration Martin Luther King meets eight white priest from Alabama who had wrote four days earlier a letter entitled A Call for unity. While conceding the existence of social injustice, they expressed the belief that the battle against racial segregation should take place in the courts and not in the street. Martin Luther replied that without direct and powerful efforts like those he undertook, civil rights would never be achieved.

He argues that civil disobedience is justified not only to deal with an unjust law, but that "everyone has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

The letter includes the famous quote "An injustice wherever it is, is a threat to justice everywhere" he also repeats the words of Thurgood Marshall: "A justice too long delayed is justice denied".

Until the end of his life, Martin Luther King remains opposed to the radicalization and violence advocated by the Black Power and stresses that "the riots do nothing" and considers this method as ineffective even beyond nature opposed riots in his doctrine of non-violence, morality and faith:

"If we say that power is the ability to change or the ability to achieve its objectives, then this is not the power to engage in an act that does not do this."

For him a guerrilla war such as Che Guevara is a romantic illusion. He prefers the discipline of civil disobedience which he defines as not only a right but also a tribute to a democratic untapped energy. The same applies to poverty, it calls on militants to "use all the power of non-violence on the economic problem," although nothing in the U.S. Constitution guarantee's a roof and a meal. Martin Luther King recognized the difficulty of the task but asked not to be intimidated by those who scoff at the non-violence. He noted the similarity of their struggle with that of Jesus:

"Public opinion has turned against him. They said he was an agitator. He used civil disobedience. He refused orders to the law. "

For Martin Luther, non-violence is not only right but necessary, as accurate as either the cause of origin, the violent means fail and the cycle of vengeance of the law of retaliation, when he defends the ethic of reciprocity:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a downward spiral, causing the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of weakening evil, it multiplies. Using violence, you can kill the liar, but you cannot kill the lie, nor establish the truth. Using violence, you can kill the hate, but you cannot kill hatred. There hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night without stars. Darkness cannot drive away the darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive hate: only love can do that. "

Works Cited:

Speeches that Changed the World: The Stories and Transcripts of the Moments that Made History. Quercus.

Baldwin, Lewis V. (1992). To Make the Wounded Whole: The Cultural Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Fortress Press.

Warren, Mervyn A. (2001). King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. InterVarsity Press.

King, Jr., Martin Luther; Clayborne Carson; Peter Holloran; Ralph Luker; Penny A. Russell (1992). The papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.. University of California Press.

Ling, Peter J. (2002). Martin Luther King, Jr.. Routledge.