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King says, “Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue”. According to this statement, incase negotiations were not successful, direct way was the best method of confronting the issue. This went against his philosophy of fighting against social injustices. Through confronting the issue, there would be a lot of tension in the society, which would end up making the reconciliation process very hard. At that time, there was severe hatred between the whites and blacks, which meant that direct action could worsen the relationship between these two groups. This statement can be viewed as an incitement, which could have led to the society in turmoil. As a Christian leader, he it was unexpected of him to give such speech. Instead, he was supposed to act as a mediator between the Negro community, who were demonstrating and the whites.

In this letter, King says, “One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely”. According to this statement, one can analyze King as a person who did want criticism. He seemed to believe in what he did to be correct, hence nobody was to correct him. The clergy had based his claims on the fact that the Birmingham’s administration was new. Therefore, he could have given it time to try and sought out the issues that the Negro community had. With time, this administration would have come up with new policies that would have eliminated the segregation that was rampant in this time. However, King did not consider this aspect while conducting the demonstrations in this town. He would have taken this criticism positively, something that would have enabled him to analyze his actions. This in turn could have enabled him to know if he was conducting these activities at the right time. According to him, the new mayor, Mr. Boutwell was a more gentle person than the previous mayor Mr. Connor. However, he was also a segregationist, which made him believe that he would maintain a status quo discriminating blacks. Despite this knowledge of the new mayor, he would have given him time to try and solve the segregation problem (Birt 2012).

King’s actions can be compared to that of Nelson Mandela, as they have some similarities as well as differences. One of the similarities between these two leaders was their approach to the fight against social injustice. It happens that both of them were fighting against the same problems however in different locations. King was fighting against segregation against the blacks in the United States while Mandela was fighting against the same in South Africa. Both of them advocated for a peaceful society that lived in harmony. After becoming the first South African president, Mandela forgave all his enemies. This action was aimed at ensuring that the South African society remained united despite the problems that the blacks had experienced in the hands of the whites. On the other hand, King developed a philosophy that aimed at fighting against social evils using non-violent means. According to these principles, negotiations and education were the most ideal means to solve social problems. However, both of them called for the use of violence in the event negotiations failed. We can see King supporting the Negro community’s demonstrations after the white regime left them with no other alternative to fight for their rights. On his part, Mandela used both negotiations and violence to fight for freedom. For example, he is said to have travelled a lot of nations in the quest to seek for diplomatic ways of ending the segregation in his country. However, when he lost hope in diplomacy, he decided to use violence. This is an indication that these two leaders had common views on the fight against social injustice (Ahearn and David 2005).

Their differences are brought about by the way they express themselves while frustrated. Analysis of King’s letter while in Birmingham shows that he was easily carried away by frustrations. He wrote the letter in an angry tone, which was an indication of his anger towards the clergy who was criticizing his work as unwise and untimely. The frustrations are what led to him writing this letter, so that he could express his anger to the clergy.This is unlike Mandela was never frustrated in his quest for liberating the black South Africans. Despite being detained in very many occasions, he never lost focus on his work. Instead, he went on with his work of uniting South Africans.

King wrote this letter mainly to express his disappointment with the clergy for his remarks. According to King, the clergy was supposed to be on the forefront supporting his activities, as he was a church leader, hence was supposed to support any efforts aimed at promoting human rights. By criticizing his activities, King thought that the clergy did not value blacks, which ended up frustrating him a lot. However, King’s reaction was not ideal based on is position in the society. He would not have reacted angrily to these remarks. Instead, he should have analyzed them in order to get a clear picture of what the clergy meant. In some aspects, the clergy might have been right in his remarks based on the fact that the town had got a new leadership. His reaction led to some people viewing him as a person who was against peaceful means of finding solutions to social problems, as seemed to support demonstrations that were carried out by the blacks in Birmingham. However, critical analysis of King’s statements in this letter shows that he was dedicated to using non-violent means to fight social injustice. For example, he says that the Negro community sought to use demonstration after negotiations failed to solve their problems (Ahearn and David 2005).

Work cited

Ahearn, David O, and Peter R. Gathje.Doing Right and Being Good: Catholic and Protestant Readings in Christian Ethics. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 2005. Print.

Birt, Robert E. The Liberatory Thought of Martin Luther King Jr: Critical Essays on the Philosopher King. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2012. Print.

King, Martin L. Letter from the Birmingham Jail. San Francisco: Harper, 1994. Print.