20 POINTS
Letter from Birmingham Jail
List as many allusions as you can find in paragraph 12 \/
(the one below)
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just
law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of
harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades
human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and
damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it"
relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation
is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has
said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful
estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme
Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.