# @breyeschow on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CY1pQlxPpJg
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/18934940-breyeschow-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/72c0f2b6c9.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-01-17T16:39:12.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Bruce Reyes-Chow (@breyeschow) — https://gondola.cc/breyeschow

## Caption

Reposted from @daylaborernetwork If you’ve never read Letter From a Birmingham Jail, read it today. @shes_mightymighty (1st slide) & @gaetanocalagna (2nd & 3rd slide plus caption  below):
・・・
The Letter from Birmingham Jail is famed for its espousal of #civildisobedience. Dr. King refuted critcisms that his public demonstrations were disorderly and unlawful. He argued that patriotic citizens have the moral duty to opposose unjust laws. "An unjust law is no law at all."

Like in the present day, moderates and conservatives argued that citizens could not simply dertermine what constituted a just law or an unjust law. In response, Dr. King cited Thomas Aquinas' theory of eternal and natural law: any law that undermines the human spirit is unjust. Thus, any law inflicted on disenfranchised minorities is unjust. Any law selectively applied to one group of people is unjust. Slavery, segregation, and war are unjust. Laws used to uphold an unjust system are unjust.

"Segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority."

The white public derided Dr. King's beliefs as extremist. They believed he could go through the courts, instead of demonstrating in the streets. They believed he tried to rush an inevitable result. King debunked the notion that time alone would create equality; he aruged that progress was only achieved through tireless effort.

#Liberation would not be handed; it had to be DEMANDED. "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

He condemmed centrism. He characterized the white morderate as the biggest obstacle towards Black liberation. Their shallow understanding of societal ills enabled injustice. Their self-annointed "constructuve criticism" derrived from paternalism. And their laissez faire approach paralyzed progress.

"Justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Dr. King's words still ring true.

#ReclaimMLK
#MLKjr #MLKday #MartinLutherKing #MartinLutherKingJr #MartinLutherKingJrDay #LetterFromBirminghamJail  #MLK #CivilRights #CivilRightsMoveme

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## Credits

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Bruce Reyes-Chow | @breyeschow | https://gondola.cc/breyeschow | Writer/Author |

## Tags

martinlutherkingjrday, letterfrombirminghamjail, civilrightsmoveme, martinlutherkingjr, mlk, liberation, civilrights, mlkjr, mlkday, civildisobedience, reclaimmlk, martinlutherking

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