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Review Of Dr. King's Letter From Birmingham Jail: A More Perfect Union

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Review Of Dr. King's Letter From Birmingham Jail: A More Perfect Union
Tonya Seales

Paper #2

“We have waited for more than 340 years for our Constitutional and God given rights” (King, Letter from Birmingham Jail, 3). Racial equality; something that black Americans along with white Americans have been fighting to get for far too long. Both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama want to see the black community get out from under the many years of discrimination and blatant racism that they have been subject to. In many ways we can see President Obama following in the footsteps of Dr. King’s teachings in the …show more content…
King left off; it starts where Dr. King ended due to his untimely death. Both Dr. King and President Obama commenced their speeches by explaining their place in the time sequence of American History. Whereas Dr. King explained figuratively and literally, President Obama purposefully explained how society is following in the footsteps of those in Philadelphia after signing the Constitution. President Obama began with the preamble of the Constitution and set the tone for the rest of his speech: “We the people in order to form a more perfect union” (Obama, 1). This state of perfection became the overall theme of his address, as well as a term that he used later in the speech. Neither President Obama nor Dr. King ever used terms that say racism has been successfully overcome or that racial tension is no longer an issue. Quite the contrary, both speakers expressed how the issue of racism is powerful, it is not static or unchanging; people must always strive to change the status quo, and in the words of President Obama, strive for perfection. He also went on to say, in the first couple lines of his speech, after explaining the signing of the Constitution, that though the document is signed, it is ultimately unfinished. The language of “unfinished” further demonstrates President Obama’s craft to explain the dynamic quality of race in this country and that society should never reach a point where there is no longer a concern for
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