Martin Luther King Jr.
Minister and leader of the civil rights movement: he defends nonviolent disobedience to unjust laws, openly and accepting the penalty.
Life
American Baptist minister (Atlanta 1929 - Memphis 1968) with a doctorate in theology from Boston University, he led the Montgomery bus boycott (1955-1956) and then the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Drawing on the Christian tradition, Gandhi and personalism, he defends nonviolence and open disobedience to unjust laws in the name of a higher moral law. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was assassinated in 1968.
Main works
He answers clergymen who call his actions untimely: an unjust law has no moral claim, and one may disobey it openly while accepting the penalty.
The story of the Montgomery boycott, with an account of his philosophy of nonviolence and agape.
An account of the 1963 Birmingham campaign that reprints the Letter and defends nonviolent direct action.
In his own words
« Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. »
« One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. »
« 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. »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe writes as a believer who speaks of God-given rights and of a moral law rooted in God.
King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
Agape, a love that seeks the good of others, is the principle that guides action and nonviolence.
King, Stride Toward Freedom (1958); Strength to Love (1963)
He holds that a moral law exists above human laws; a law out of harmony with it is unjust and one has a duty to disobey it.
King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
Life has a purpose within God's moral order: he holds that the universe is on the side of justice.
King, Strength to Love (1963)