Sync of Experience in White’s Democracy and Luther’s Letter from Birmingham Prison
Though EB White and Martin Luther King Jr wrote the letters almost twenty years apart to a distinctive audience, the contents of the messages have multiple shared aspects as far as democracy and doing the right thing is concerned. In Whites letter Democracy addressed to the Writer’s War Board, a Second World Two propaganda channel, the author highlights what real democracy entails and suggests that the board must be insincere in feigning ignorance about not knowing what democracy entails. Again, Martin Luther King Jr in the Letter from Birmingham Jail responds to the clergies who castigated his acts in leading the direct action in Birmingham City in a protest of the harsh, discriminatory, and racist policies against the Negro as he put it.
Therefore, King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and White’s Democracy perfectly aligns with democratic issues such as maintaining law and order, accepting the reign of the majority, appreciating the rights of others and their importance, and generally doing the right thing.
First, there is a convergent in experiences related to the fact that democracy means doing the right thing. In a democracy, doing the right thing is always associated with maintaining law and order and equal application of the law without considering the racial lines or any other impediments. Such an aspect is summarized by White when he defines describes democracy as “It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove” (lines 4 and 5). Based on such a statement, it is evident that democracy relates to doing the right thing as prescribed by the governing laws. King also shares the same thoughts when he reminds the clergy in the letter that he resorts to a peaceful direct action not to go against the laws and the establishment, an occurrence which could have resulted in massive bloodshed in the South. In his show of doing the right thing, King highlights that “I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth” (Paragraph 9). Such a statement shows that Luther only engages in lawful and right acts as dictated in any democratic society.
Again, in both cases, White and King feel that democracy is where people are allowed to participate in their civic duties in the country and individual rights respected. In response to the board, White highlights that democracy “is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths… the feeling of vitality everywhere” (Lines 7 and 8). Based on such a proposal, it is evident that for one to experience democracy, they must participate in civic duties such as voting and their contributions adequately valued. The same thought is shared by King when he decries that “Throughout Alabama, all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered” (paragraph 14). Though the African-Americans were the majority in Alabama, their rights to vote is curtailed in a bright contrast of White’s suggestion that “Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time” (Lines 6 and 7). Such an assertion emanates from the feeling that the majority should always carry the day in any democratic space, a view shared by both White and Luther.