A Passage from Letter From Birmingham City Jail: “The
Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them
out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city
hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed
emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in
ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history.
So I have said to my people, “Get rid of your discontent.” But I have tried to
say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the
creative outlet of nonviolent direct action.” Throughout his letter, MLK speaks of
his actions as positive, and tries to explain them to anybody who could be
confused about it. He explains what his four step process to success is, as
well as how it has worked in the past, but this passage is unlike the rest of
the letter. In this paragraph from the letter, in this portion, his words of
wisdom begin to turn into words of fear, much like a small portion of his “I
have a dream” speech. MLK’s words turn into that of a discontent among his
people, as well as a warning to what this discontent will lead to if not fixed.
His words may not come across as a direct threat towards people, nor may that
have ever been his intention with the words that he used, but to me they came
off particularly threatening. His sentence of “they will come out in ominous
expressions of violence” speaks of the pent up emotions that come with not
having equal rights as a citizen who should. This “ominous expression of
violence” seems to be some kind of way to say that there will be consequences
if nothing is done, whether they are burning down of towns on a much more
serious end, or simply angry letters on another end of the spectrum, but both
of these could be something that could be imagined by somebody reading, or
hearing this letter. The potential hazard of this statement is one that I
believe should have been treated much more lightly than it was, because this
sentence could have been one that had the power to change the outlook of the
people looking into this from an outside perspective. While a majority of this
letter may have been encompassed around the positives that they strove for, and
the happiness that they want in the end, this passage was far from any of that.
