Why is Martin Luther King being criticized in the"Letter from Birmingham Jail" article

Answer 1

What you have to understand is that the Civil Rights movement was the product of a time in which most Americans, including those on the left and in the Kennedy administration, believed that the South was willing to make slow incremental changes to Jim Crow if only they were not pushed. From this perspective, Dr. King's actions in violating the law and creating confrontations was counter-productive. The Civil Rights movement ultimately succeeded because it demonstrated how unreasonable Southern Segregationists were. I recommend Jonathan Rieder's Gospel of Freedom.