ENGL 1101 questions Birmingham Jail PDF

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Diego Wong ENGL 1102 Fall 2013 Extra credit questions on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham jail”

1. Why did King write this letter? A) As president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King indicates the Clergymen that there is injustice in Birmingham, Alabama and that he came to spread peace and freedom. 2. How does King answer the charge about “outsiders” coming in? A) King first explains that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference has a headquarters in every southern state, then he talks about the prophets of the eight century B.C that carried out freedom, and finally concludes that anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. 3. What are the four steps leading to any nonviolent campaign? A) Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist, negotiation, selfpurification, and direct action. 4. What is the purpose of nonviolent direct action? A) It dramatizes an issue so that it stops being ignored and forces the community to confront it and negotiate. 5. What is at least one difference between just and unjust laws? A) Any law that uplifts human personality is just, while any law that degrades human personality is unjust. 6. What is the source of King’s disappointment with white moderates? A) That they are more devoted to “order” than to justice. That they prefer a negative peace (absence of tension) to a positive peace (presence of justice). 7. How does King answer the charge that his actions have precipitated violence? A) He doesn’t believe that this is a logical assertion because he says that it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence.

8. What does King say are the two “opposing forces in the Negro community”? A) The force of complacency (negroes adjusted to segregation, insensitive to problems of the masses) and the force of bitterness and hatred (Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement, white man is an incorrigible "devil.") 9. How does King answer the charge that he is an extremist? A) He was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, but then he realized the term “extremist” could be used in a good way. He then talks about Jesus an extremist for love, Amos an extremist for justice, Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel, and others. King believes we can choose to be extremists for hate or for love, for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice. He concludes that the world is in dire need of creative extremists for good, peace and love. 10. What is the source of King’s disappointment with the church? A) White ministers, priests and rabbis of the South have remained silent, being outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders. King came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of the community would see the justice of their cause and help them....