"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" / "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
Martin Luther King Jr. · 1963
Written in the margins of a newspaper in a Birmingham jail. The most important political essay in American history after the Declaration. "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
The case against
Bundled together, these essays expose each other. Thoreau's is the weak partner: one comfortable night in Concord's jail, the tax paid by a relative, a politics of personal purity that organizes nothing. King's letter answers eight specific Alabama clergymen and assumes you know what they wrote. The greatness is real. The pairing mostly flatters Thoreau.
Essays · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
