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导读：本文是一篇美国留学生学期essay，需要先阅读一下伯明翰去监狱的信，来写一篇关于马丁路德金在伯明翰监狱写的信。
1.0 Introduction介绍
马丁路德金是美国历史上最著名的民权领袖之一，他的许多演讲、文章和行动都是世界和美国宝贵的精神财富（Herda，2016年）。阿拉巴马州伯明翰市是当时美国隔离最严重的大城市（Krieger等人，2008年）。在学校、餐馆、城市公园、百货公司的更衣室里，有着完整而彻底的种族隔离。1962年底，马丁路德金因在阿拉巴马州伯明翰发起新的反种族隔离运动而被捕入狱。为了回应一些人的批评，马丁·路德·金写了美国文学史上最伟大的作品之一：“伯明翰监狱的一封信”。他呼吁所有种族团结起来反对种族歧视，建立一个平等和自由的国家。本文首先介绍了马丁·路德·金在伯明翰监狱的信中所描述的解决种族歧视的原则，然后根据马丁·路德·金的原则分析了美国社会目前的种族歧视问题。
Martin Luther King was one of the most famous civil rights leaders in American history, and many of his speeches, articles and actions are a valuable spiritual wealth for the world and the United States (Herda, 2016). Alabama Birmingham City was a big city with the most serious segregation in the U.S. at that time (Krieger et al., 2008). In the schools, restaurants, city parks, dressing rooms in the department stores, there was complete and thorough apartheid. At the end of 1962, Martin Luther King was arrested and imprisoned for launching a new anti-apartheid movement in Birmingham, Alabama. In response to criticism from some people, Martin Luther King wrote one of the greatest works of American literatures: "a letter from Birmingham jail". He called on all races to be united against racial discrimination to establish a country of equality and freedom. In this essay, the author first introduces the principles of resolving racial discrimination described by Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail, and then it analyzes the present racial discrimination in American society based on Martin Luther King's principles.
2.0 Main body主体
2.1 Legal fairness法律公平
马丁·路德·金提到了法律公平的问题，他认为法律不公正是种族歧视的重要原因之一。他抨击了当时美国的不公正法，引用了圣奥古斯丁的引言：“不公正的法律根本不是法律。”然后他引用了圣托马斯·阿奎那的话：“不公正的法律是一部不植根于永恒法和自然法的人类法律。”马丁·路德·金的言论反映了歧视法的存在。黑人在当时仍存在于美国，为美国社会的种族歧视言论和行为提供了法律保护，给美国黑人争取合法权益带来了极大的困难。
Martin Luther King mentioned the question of fairness in law, and he argued that legal injustice was one of the important causes of racial discrimination. He attacked the law of injustice in the United States at that time and quoted St. Augustine's introduction: "unjust laws are not law at all." Then he quotes what St. Thomas Aquinas said that "An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law." Martin Luther King's remarks reflected that the law of discrimination against blacks still existed in the United States at that time, which provided legal protection for racial discrimination speech and behavior in American society and brought a great difficulty for American blacks to fight for their legitimate rights and interests.
2.2 Immoral racial discrimination 不道德的种族歧视
Martin Luther King believed that apartheid is ridiculous not only in political, economic, sociological sense, but also morally wrong and guilty. He quoted St. Thomas Aquinas’ words for this purpose, "segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality." Martin Luther King used "when" to guide sentences to describe American blacks’ miserable life and unfair treatment at that time, which caused readers’ strong sympathy and showed the importance and rationality of pursuing racial equality for blacks to readers.
2.3 Means of resisting racial discrimination
Martin Luther King advocated a legitimate approach of non-violent struggle against racial discrimination. He brought forward four steps of the "nonviolent struggle": "collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action," which demonstrated the rationality of non-violent struggle to the people. He argued that the non-violent struggle aimed at opposing the use of extreme violence against racial discrimination and he did not advocate using too soft means to oppose racial discrimination, pointing out that the racial equality struggle could not be entirely hoping for supports from the whites at that time, as the white gentry did not effectively prevent the occurrence of racial discrimination.
2.4 Current injustices
Over the past few decades, many white police’s violent law enforcement in the United States has led to blacks’ deaths, which led to mass protests and social unrest, and the polices involved were often exempted from prosecution (Shane, Lawton and Swenson, 2017). To avoid the recurrence of similar events, it is necessary to achieve the principle that Martin Luther King mentioned that laws must be impartial.
In the contemporary American society, racial discrimination against blacks still exists in the law of the United States (Malamud, 2015). In judicial practice, blacks with crimes are often punished heavier than whites. In the event of death in the conflicts between police and blacks, the numbers of blacks who died in the conflicts were two times more than that of white police, and the police involved were often exempted from prosecution.
Blacks have been killed by excessive enforcement of laws by the police, which actually reflects the fact of racial discrimination mentioned by Martin Luther King still presents in the United States, and the discrimination is manifested in the low average living standard of blacks, lack of employment opportunities, and so on, racial discrimination conflicts with the justice, independence and freedom advertised by the American society (Shane, Lawton and Swenson, 2017).
Such events have recurring in the United States, indicating that the US judiciary has not taken effective measures, and the people of the United States, including whites and blacks, can consider taking the legitimate means of nonviolent struggle that Martin Luther King mentioned to cause social and the government's attention, so as to fundamentally solve the problem (Shane, Lawton and Swenson, 2017).
3.0 Conclusion
Martin Luther King's view of racial discrimination is still an important reference for today's American society to solve social discrimination, which is reflected in three aspects. He pointed out that racial discrimination is an immoral act, the existence of racial discrimination is closely related to the injustice of the laws, and social citizens should take a legitimate way to oppose racial discrimination. Today, people can still look at the issues of racial discrimination in the light of Martin Luther King's principles, because the reasons for today's racial discrimination are to a large extent similar to that of in the 1950s and 1960s.
References
Herda, D. (2016). The specter of discrimination: Fear of interpersonal racial discrimination among adolescents in Chicago. Social Science Research, 55(1), 48-62.
Krieger, N. et al. (2008). The inverse hazard law: blood pressure, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, workplace abuse and occupational exposures in US low-income black, white and Latino workers. Social Science & Medicine, 67(12), 1970-1981.
Malamud, D. C. (2015). Discrimination and the law. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 530-535.
Shane, J. M., Lawton, B. and Swenson, Z. (2017). The prevalence of fatal police shootings by U.S. police, 2015–2016: Patterns and answers from a new data set. Journal of Criminal Justice, 10(5), 105-121.
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