In part, that’s due to the way King writes. “Every time I teach King’s letter, my students spark a conversation about how the inequalities King and his supporters were fighting against are still undeniably present today,” says Escariz. “I teach the letter as one of the main texts for my rhetoric unit because it is so rich.' Escariz has included King’s letter in her syllabus every semester for the past several years as a model of impactful rhetoric-defined simply as the art of persuasive language. “King is a master of rhetoric,” says third-year literature PhD student and Seminar in Composition instructor Lissette Escariz Ferrá. Their letter ends with a refrain that’s also familiar today: “We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.”īut what makes King’s letter-and not the clergymen’s-so memorable, regardless of a reader’s race or background? “We are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely,” they wrote. The letter, written while King was in solitary confinement after being arrested for demonstrating against segregation in Alabama, is addressed to a handful of clergymen who had themselves written a letter to the local newspaper decrying his actions. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Many turns of phrase in Martin Luther King Jr.’s renowned 1963 “ Letter from Birmingham Jail” are familiar to Americans today:

Mlk jr letter from birmingham jail