Final answer:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. justifies breaking unjust laws through nonviolent civil disobedience in his 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail,' insisting on the moral imperative to resist oppressive legal systems.
Step-by-step explanation:
In his seminal 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail,' Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explains his decision to break the law by engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. He contends that there is a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws, which he distinguishes from just laws on the basis of whether they are aligned with the moral law or the law of God. Dr. King cites St. Augustine in saying, "an unjust law is no law at all," and posits that laws that degrade human personality and create inequality are unjust.
Dr. King argues that African Americans in Birmingham and throughout the South had waited more than 300 years for their constitutional and God-given rights. He voices his disappointment with the white church and its leadership, who urged compliance with desegregation solely because it was law, not because it was morally right and just. The civil rights leader expresses that waiting for justice is no longer an option, as delay has too often meant never.
Throughout the letter, Dr. King condemns the inhumanity of Jim Crow laws and the violence against peaceful protesters, as seen in Birmingham, where police attacked demonstrators with fire hoses and police dogs. He justifies the breaking of laws when those laws are used as tools of injustice and oppression, as was the case during the civil rights struggle in the United States. The letter becomes not only a defense of civil disobedience, but a stirring and cogent exposition on the struggle for racial equality.