Birmingham Jail Speech
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, we are gathered here today to talk about the case of Martin Luther King Jr vs. Birmingham Jail. On the year of 1963 Martin Luther King Jr was protesting with many others outside the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. These men and women were protesting against the treatment of blacks in this specific city. Then police officers came and arrested several people including King. They were not arrested for the sake of it, but because a court in the city ordered that King could not be able to hold protest in Birmingham.
Martin Luther King was sent to jail for 8 days and while inside of the Jail he wrote the famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” on pieces of toilet paper and on the sides of newspapers. Throughout this speech you will hear about how Martin Luther King used children for his protests and wanted his people to be arrested so they could get social media attention. During all of Martin Luther King’s marches, boycotts, and protests he has broken what it is today called the Segregation Law.
Once King was at Birmingham his main intent was to provoke mass arrest so that they could create a big crisis and open the city to a negotiation. King protested around the city affecting the social security community of the people that lived in Birmingham. To get social media attention towards the police, King used several young children to help out in the protest. It is unfair and unjust to use small children in front of the adult protestants, putting them in jeopardy of their safety of these poor innocent children.
He also encouraged kids from elementary school, high school, and college to not go to school so they could take part in the demonstrations, that day when they didn’t go to school was named D day and later called the Childrens Crusade. King is responsible for this wrong and unforgiving decision for the only intention to get the attention from the media. All the protest that he initiated were with the purpose of everyone to be arrested to raise the jail expenses and to provoke a city crisis, and we need to realize that it this not the right way to do it.
King’s way to solve their problems was in his words a peaceful way, but provoking a crisis is not what we should think is a peaceful way to deal with the problem. In the other hand there is a right way to ask for rights for the black community. Imagine that anyone who wants something could go out on the streets and protest like this. The right way is to put everything they want on paper and send it to be read from the right authorities.
