Letter from Birmingham Jail

Letter from Birmingham Jail was written by Martin Luther King Jr. during his time incarcerated for the nonviolent protests against segregation.  The Letter is written as a rebuttal to a public statement that was released by eight white religious leaders of the south. Kings letter is extremely long but has main points throughout which relate directly to human relationships between the white man and the African-American man. "We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;...". This quote right here is the main focus of why King writes this letter. He describes complete social injustice being struck down upon his  people by viscous lynchings  to inequality economically that have resulted in his people being poor and in the cycle of poverty. Clearly this is social and legal injustice as he claims it to be in his letter. But the beginning of the quote is about how other nations such as Africa and Asia are on a faster pace schedule to than the United States is to remove segregation and injustice to African Americans. It is almost unthinkable to be able to put my self back into this time period and be able to comprehend how normal it was to witness lynches of women and children just because of their race. This is not normal in todays modern thinking and accepting society because interacting with other humans has a moral code without color in the present day thanks to the work accomplished by King. I believe the most powerful line in the entire letter is the second to last. In it King says ,"If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me." This shows that even though King is fighting for what he believes in and ended up in jail for it, as well as watched thousands of people suffer under the racial injustice of the law written by the white government of the U.S, he still asks for forgiveness from the white men reading the letter and from god if he said anything that wasn't true. This shows how he interacts with people and with how he handles human relationships and interactions, which is with peace. 
- Sam