The letter that Dr Martin Luther King Jr. wrote while he was in the Birmingham jail in April 1963 was inspiring. He wrote the letter to the clergymen in Birmingham and he hoped to inspire them to see through his eyes on why things were wrong in the south. He had many many examples to why things were wrong, and he thoroughly explained each of them, making his letter from what he says to be one of the longest letters he had ever wrote.
He explained what the purposed were of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and explained the steps that al of the members took to make it through the NON-violent campaign. He also stated that he postponed his organizationg direct actions because of the election, and more things that were going on that he did not want to disrupt the middle of. He made it clear that the organizations intensions were to act in the most respectful way that they could while forcing the issue to be confronted.
He also had a lot of examples to appeal to the clergymen, and I want to quote it exactly, because it is just so emotionally appealing. "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 and even kill your black brothers and sisters; 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 ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county 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 are 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 tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are 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."
Overall, this was a great letter that he wrote, and I am glad that I read! it
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