Blog # 6 King

This blog to me was very powerful, Martin Luther King really comes out and presents many views that are very disturbing and powerful. When it comes to distinguishing between just laws and unjust laws King makes it extremely clear that just laws are “ a manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of God” (King 179). Also that an unjust law “is a human that is mot rooted in eternal law and natural law” (King 179). “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust” (King 179). He feels very strongly that people have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws and to obey just laws. He also agrees with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all” (King 179). People need to take stands to go against unjust laws, in order to change things in our society that are discriminatory and racial. If it were not for people like King who fought against what he felt was wrong then these horrible issues could still be happening today. King truly was the force behind the change I think behind racism. Also it seems to be a trend that these influential people feel that if a law is unjust then people have a moral obligation to go against these laws. I was truly thrown by the fact that King used when talking about Birmingham. “Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negros have experienced grossly unjust treatments in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings in Negro homes and churches in Birmingham that in any other city in the nation” (King 175). This reading to me really showed me how influential Martin Luther King was and that if it were not for him then who knows where the world would be.

King Luther Martin. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. Ed. Lee A Jacobus. 7th ed. New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2006.pp 171-189.