Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written in a time of civil unrest in the United States and served as a background to the fight against segregation suffered by African Americans. King used his letter to inform the world of the plight of African American’s and utilized natural law to clarify his position. In King’s letter he affirms his belief that he has not broken the law, he asserts that “an unjust law is no law at all”. What I believe that King is saying is that a law that is unjust does not serve the purpose of natural law. In this essay, I intend to argue that Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” adapted the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas’ conception of natural law to successfully argue against Alabama’s segregation laws.

King’s letter is founded on the principle of natural law.

In April of 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed for a non-violent campaign of marches and sit-ins which had been organized to end racism and segregation in Alabama. While incarcerated a newspaper was smuggled in. This newspaper contained a statement made by various white clergy men of Alabama. Motivated, King responded to the clergy men with the now famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In this letter King argues against segregation laws using the tenets of
explicitly noted in his writings, that he was influenced by the work of 13th century philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas. King’s functional definition of natural law was taken from Aquinas’ seminal and most known work, “Summa Theologica”. King agrees with St. Thomas Aquinas’ key precepts of natural law that good should be promoted and carried out, while evil must be identified and avoided. It was King’s view that he had not broken a moral or legal law. King strongly believed in Aquinas teachings, stating that “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law”. King’s arguments in his letter accurately reflect Aquinas’ philosophy on natural