Angela

“All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I-it” relationship for an “I-thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.”
― Bryan Loritts, Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.