Letter from Birmingham Jail: Injustice Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)

Quote #4

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws. (18)

Dr. King makes examples out of America's great historical enemies: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. They had laws and followed them, but it's clear to us that those laws were unjust. Sometimes as a nation you've got to look in the mirror…

Quote #5

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. (35)

At this point in the letter, it's abundantly obvious that Dr. King doesn't care about laws in and of themselves. If they're wrong, it's wrong to support and follow them. Just because you have a piece of paper saying what you're doing is legal, it doesn't mean what you're doing is right.