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Analytical Essay Assignments

In each of the following assignments, you are to write an essay in which you analyze the work by showing how its component parts contribute to the author's theme.  First, you must identify the theme, then, in your thesis, state how the author achieves that theme through his/her use of diction, imagery, structure, other poetic devices (alliteration, consonance, dissonance, repetition, metaphor, simile, etc.), rhetorical devices (parallelism, reference to authority, comparison/contrast, definition, argumentation, classification, unity and coherence, enumeration, etc.), or other methods of composition.  You must be very specific; generalizations will not do.  Make sure that you have clear topic sentences which support your thesis and that you use specific examples from the texts.

Analysis Essay #1:   Analyze a poem.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 23

  As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharg'd with burden of mine own love's might.
O let my books be, then, the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love ,and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
O learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

Analysis Essay #2:     Analyze a short story.

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg, open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-- of joy that kills.

Analysis Essay #3:     Analyze an essay.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

------- *AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J.
Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend
George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat
constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter
was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were
eventually permitted to. leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's prerogative
of polishing it for publication. MLK------- .

Letter from the Birmingham Jail

April 16, 1963

Birmingham, Al.

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and
untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that
cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for
constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like
to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders
coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating
in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliate organizations all across the
South--one being the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Whenever necessary and possible we share staff,
educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be
on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented and when the
hour came we lived up to our promises. So I am here, along with several members of my staff, because I have basic
organizational ties here.

Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages and carried
their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of
Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am
compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the
Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be
concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never
again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can
never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country.

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not
express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want
to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects, and does not grapple with underlying causes. I would
not hesitate to say that it is unfortunate that so-called demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham at this time, but I would
say in more emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this city left the Negro community
with no other alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive. 2)
Negotiation. 3) Self-purification and 4) Direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no
gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community.

Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in
every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved
bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in theisnation. These are the hard, brutal and unbelievable
facts. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders
consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating
sessions certain promises were made by the merchants--such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the
stores. On the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human
Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were
the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. Like so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted
hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing for
direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and
national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of
self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions: "Are you able to
accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?" We decided to setour direct-action program
around the Easter season, realizing that with the exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year.
Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this was the best
time to bring pressure on the merchants for the needed changes. Then it occurred to us that the March election was ahead and
so we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that Mr. Connor was in the run-off,
we decided again to postpone action so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. At this time we agreed
to begin our nonviolent witness the day after the run-off.

This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action. We too wanted to see Mr. Connor defeated; so we went
through postponement after postponement to aid in this community need. After this we felt that direct action could be delayed
no longer.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in
your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and
establish such creative tension that a community thathas constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks
so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the
nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have
earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension thatis necessary for
growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage
of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having
nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and
racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So the purpose of the directaction is to create a situation so
crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too
long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely. Some have asked, "Why didn't you give the new
administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this inquiry is that the new Birmingham administration must be
prodded about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr.
Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they
are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be
reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the
devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal
and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges
voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has
reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of
those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the words [sic]"Wait!" It rings
in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see with
the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia
and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace
toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of
segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters
and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and
sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of
poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you
seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on
television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the
depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by
unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking
in agonizing pathos: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and
find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you;
when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes
"nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and
mother andre never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are
a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer
resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"; then you will understand why we find it
difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an
abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so
diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather
strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws
and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws.
I would agree with Saint Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made
code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To
put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law
that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust
because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and the
segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes and
"I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only
politically, economically and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation.
Isn't segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible
sinfulness? So I can urge men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that
is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority
to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or
creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the
segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to
prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote
despite the fact that the Negro constitutes a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be considered
democratically structured?

These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its
application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now there is nothing wrong with an
ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the
First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid
segregationist would do. This would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly, (not hatefully
as the white mothers did in New Orleans when they were seen on television screaming "nigger, nigger, nigger") and with a
willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly
accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very
highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the
early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain
unjust laws of the Roman empire. To a degree academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil
disobedience.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in
Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in
Germany during that time I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a
Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate
disobeying these anti-religious laws. I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must
confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the
regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er
or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace
which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the
goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for
another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient
season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill
will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.



I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and that
when they fail to do this they become dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the
white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an
obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all
men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the
creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it
can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its
pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its
exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence.
But can this assertion be logically made? Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money
precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his
philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus
because His unique God-Consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must
come to see, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoralto urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to
gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the
robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in
Texas which said: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are
in too great of a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ
take time to come to earth." All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the the strangely irrational
notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either
destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill-will have used time much more effectively thanthe
people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people,
but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of
inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without
this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize
that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending
national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial
injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my
nonviolent efforts as those of the extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in
the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have
been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation, and, of a few
Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security, and because at pointsthey profit by
segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness, and
hatred comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up
over the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the
contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in
America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable "devil." I
have tried to stand between these two forces saying that we need not follow the "do-nothingism" of the complacent or the
hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to God
that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am
convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am further convinced that if our
white brothers dismiss as "rabble rouses" and "outside agitators" those of us who are working through the channels of
nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, willseek
solace and security n black-nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what happened to the
American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he
can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black
brothers of Africa, and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of
cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community,
one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations. He has
to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have
sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous
expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people "get rid of your discontent."
But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channelized through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct
action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.

But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not
Jesus an extremist for love -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not
Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an
extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist
-- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my
days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation cannot survive half
slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate
or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice--or will we be extremists for the cause
of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for
the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The
other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe
the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should
have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and
passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out
by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning
of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some
like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden and James Dabbs have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic and
understanding terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy
roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry policemen who see them as "dirty nigger lovers." They, unlike so
many of their moderate brothers and sisters, have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful
"action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me rush on to mention my other disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its
leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some
significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Rev. Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming
Negroes to your worship service on a non-segregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring
Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that
as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel, who
loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it
as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years
ago, that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be
some of our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and
misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the
anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this
community would see the justice of our cause, and with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just
grievances would get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been
disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation
decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, "follow this decree because integration is morally
right and the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchs
stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid
our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, "those are social issues with which the gospel
has no real concern.", and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which
made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.

So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo,
standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.

I have travelled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days
and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at her beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the
impressive outlay of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over again I have found myself asking: "What kind of
people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of
interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave the clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where
were their voices of support when tired, bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of
complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment, I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that
my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church; I
love her sacred walls. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the
great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that
body through social neglect and fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they
were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded
the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early
Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the
peace" and "outside agitators." But they went on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God
rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically
intimidated." They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the
arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average
community is consoled by the church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgement of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of
the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no
meaning for the twentieth century. I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to
outright disgust.

Maybe again, I have been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to status-quo to save our nation and the
world? Maybe I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ecclesia and the hope
of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from
the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure
congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone through the highways of the South on
tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been kicked out of their churches, and lost support
of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have gone with the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. These
men have been the leaven in the lump of the race. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of
the Gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope though the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of
justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives
are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of
America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. Before the
pilgrims landed at Plymouth we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of
the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries our fore-parents labored in this country without
wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful
humiliation--and yet our of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery
could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our
nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

I must close now. But before closing I am impelled to mention one other point in your statement that troubled me profoundly.
You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I don't believe you would
have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent
Negroes. I don't believe you would so quickly commend the policemen if you would observe their ugly and inhuman treatment
of Negroes here in the city jail; if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you would
see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you will observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give
us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I'm sorry that I can't join you in your praise for the police department.

It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public handling of the demonstrators. In this sense they have been rather
publicly "nonviolent". But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I have
consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. So I have tried to
make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even
more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Maybe Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather publicly
nonviolent, as Chief Pritchett was in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the
immoral end of flagrant racial injustice. T. S. Eliot has said that there is no greater treason than to do the right deed for the
wrong reason.

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness
to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real
heroes. They will be the James Merediths, courageously and with a majestic sense of purpose, facing jeering and hostile mobs
and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old oppressed, battered Negro women,
symbolized in a seventy-two year old woman of Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her
people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with ungrammatical
profundity; "my feet is tired, but my soul is rested." They will be the young high school and college students, young ministers of
the gospel and a host of their elders courageously and nonviolently sitting-in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for
conscience's sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they
were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, and
thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the
formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written a letter this long, (or should I say a book?). I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious
time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is
there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange
thoughts, and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg
you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a
patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of
you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the
dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched
communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation
with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Martin Luther King, Jr.


Source: Letter from a Birmingham Jail April 16, 1963
Used with permission of the King Estate and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center.

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