MARTIN LUTHER KINGS LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM CITY JAIL….pdfVIP

MARTIN LUTHER KINGS LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM CITY JAIL: AGAPE, INTEREST, AND JUSTICE by Barbara Allen Carleton College ® 1994 by author __ WORKSHOP ON THE WORKSHOP JUNE 16-18, 1994 Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis Indiana University, 513 North Park, Bloomington, Indiana 47408-3895 U.S.A. Tel. 812-855-0441 /FAX 812-855-3150/Internet: workshop@ Martin Luther Kings Letter From the Birmingham City Jail: Agape, Interest, and Justice Kings Letter From the Birmingham City Jail On Good Friday, April 12,1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and placed in solitary confinement, charged with defying an Alabama Court injunction prohibiting protests and marches for racial equality in Birmingham. During his confinement, King wrote the Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, responding not only to this arrest, but to an open letter written earlier in the day by eight fellow clergy. The Alabama rabbi and ministers criticized the civil rights protests, proclaiming them as untimely, unwise measures, that were led by outsiders and precipitated violence. Synthesizing nearly a decade of his civil rights activism, King answers these charges, offering a carefully crafted analysis of civil disobedience. The Letter can be examined from two distinct perspectives, the contractarian theory of liberal democracy and the concept of community found in Christian theology. Before the Letter can be claimed by either tradition, scholars must reconcile these different facets and the aspects of Kings life and work that they represent Civil disobedience is understood in contractarian theory as a corrective to unjust constitutional ins