Some thoughts from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" yesterday. It's actually in the textbook I'm teaching with for 108, and it's going to be the basis for our class activity on Friday. (Nice timing, what with Monday's holiday, isn't it?) We're using it to practice classical Aristotelian analysis, but the content and eloquence of the letter were really striking to me. I thought I'd post a few quotes as food for thought--it's amazing to me how much of it seems to be quite relevant to our time, despite being written for such a different context. If these quotes make you interested to read the whole letter (it's a bit long, but certainly worth it), you can find it here.

"The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

"Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application."

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

"Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively."

"We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."

"There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being 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."