Why is the Letter from Birmingham Jail a Timeless Piece of literature?
The Letter from Birmingham Jail is a timeless piece of literature because it is a revolutionary letter that changed America forever. It was written at a peak in the civil rights movement when racism and segregation were a big problem. Birmingham was a town where racism was at an extreme on all levels. In this letter King expresses the pain of all black people being hated because of the color of their skin. Martin Luther King Jr. said many things in this letter that will never be forgotten by those who read it.
King had a way of saying things to make them sink in and get his point across. Statements such as, “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” meaning that the white moderate in that time would have rather seen everybody follow laws and not create a disturbance in the falsehood of what they call peaceful whether people are being treated bad or not; they think there should not be a change or a disturbance and people should put up with the mistreatment. If the government was okay with it then it must have been alright, so why were these black people causing such a ruckus? Many white people were scared to take sides because they knew what the other whites were doing was completely wrong, but they didn’t want to side with the blacks because if they did they would get treated worse than the black people.
King’s work to bring justice to everyone will never be forgotten because he stayed strong and never gave up, while most people snap under the pressure of hate. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” While king knew that they would have to demand freedom from oppression and fight for what is right every step of the way, he showed...