46 pages • 1 hour read
Letter From Birmingham Jail
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Symbols & Motifs
The City of Birmingham and the State of Alabama
The city of Birmingham, Alabama, is the focus of the events described in this essay. Located in the South and home to Bull Connor, the segregationist public safety commissioner, Birmingham represents the racism of the South. King also represents Birmingham as a place where African-Americans have engaged in nonviolent direct action to achieve greater freedom. Birmingham thus also serves as a symbol for the commitment of African-Americans to the struggle for freedom even in the face of violent opposition.
Birmingham City Jail
While African-Americans frequently encounter racial injustice in jails, specifically, and the criminal justice system in general, in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King represents that jail as a space in which faith is tested by the power structure. King traces this perspective on incarceration all the way back to early Christians, who were persecuted in the Roman world.
Funtown
At one point in the essay, King asks the reader to imagine what it feels like when:
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 (92).
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By Martin Luther King Jr.
