Please take out your journals and respond to the following questions: How do you change an unjust law? How do you define justice or injustice? Would you be willing to go to jail to challenge an unjust law?

Can one person make a difference?

Martin Luther King Jr. Background and Family Born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta Graduated from Morehouse College with a B.A. degree in Sociology (1948) Mentored by Morehouse President Benjamin Mays, a civil rights leader Graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary in PA with a Bachelor of Divinity Degree Married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953 and had four children

Challenging Injustices Montgomery Bus Boycott Brown v. Board of Education Civil Disobedience Nonviolence What are some other examples of challenging injustices?

Birmingham in the 1960s “You would be born in a Jim Crow hospital to parents who probably lived in a ghetto. You would attend a Jim Crow school. You would spend your childhood playing mainly in the streets because the "colored" parks were abysmally inadequate. When a federal court order banned park segregation, you would find that Birmingham closed down its parks and gave up its baseball team rather than integrate them.”

Birmingham in the 1960s Shopping Restaurants Church Jobs Housing Restrooms Water Fountains

Letter From Birmingham Jail King wrote the letter from the city jail after a peaceful protest of segregation The letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen titled “A Call for Unity” Civil Disobedience is justified in the face of unjust laws Please take about ten minutes to read over Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter From Birmingham Jail

Analysis Please choose one of the topics from the handout for analysis and use any available resources in the classroom in order to write about a one-page response. OPTION #1 Using this well-known statement, choose an example from United States history that represents the “painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.” Choose an example that illustrates his point that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” OPTION #2 Do you need to obey a law that you did not participate in creating? Most of you are under 18, do you need to live by a law you did not participate in making? Residents in a country, should they obey laws they did not participate in creating? OPTION #3 Overall response to the letter and real life connections: What is your favorite quote? Why? How can you connect this to your life or issues in your community today?

Did the nonviolent direct action, which King describes in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" successfully transform Birmingham, Alabama from a segregated to a just society in 1963?