Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Personal Reflection and Thoughts
The core focus of social work has always been to push for social change and empower people from all walks of life. Most are the times that social workers are forced to participate in legislative processes, leaning on values and principles from social work, to promote the formation of integrated social policies (Staub-Bernasconi, 2016). The fight for social justice, ironically, is a divisive process when it comes to the methodologies of its advocacy. A line is drawn between conformists and liberals. Nevertheless, the core principle of addressing the injustices of discrimination, healthcare, and unemployment should be a fight for every moral person.
Social Work and Practice Implications
In response to the criticism from fellow clergymen, Dr. King makes several syllogisms about various biblical and historical allusions to justify civil disobedience in his civil rights movement. Dr. King challenges the devotion to order as a substitute for justice. This scenario is common whereby individuals and groups are suppressed not to demand equity and equality based on ensuring order. King’s view is commendable, at least from a social work perspective in that, human rights are central in the practice. Human rights are fundamentally built on values of dignity and respect; tenets over which the NASW code of ethics are based on. King was fighting the oppressive practices and the status quo, similar to the current social work practice of ensuring the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of individuals.
The reference to the legality of Hitler’s actions and illegality of Hungarian’s freedom fighters raises an important issue on unjust laws. The juxtaposition of these two separate historical citations reinforces the point human morality supersedes all laws. King, aware of the enormous struggles for justice, was advocating for people not to submit to unjust laws. Just like the ‘extremists’, social workers have the moral obligation to stand up for laws and rules that are discriminative to the vulnerable (King jr., 1963). In furtherance of decisive action, King appealed for an all-inclusive movement with everyone within the US border. He shows a clear show of detest for the term outsider by explaining mutuality among communities and categorically espousing that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King jr., 1963). The statement has far-reaching implications as it forms a basis for promoting distributive justice and equality in the allocation of resources.
Civil Rights Movements
Recent events have opened us to the promising future of a universalistic ethical orientation under the Black Lives Matter movement. This new humanitarianism is a symbol of hope for social mechanisms and laws that dignify all vulnerable citizens of the world. Issues, expectedly, have stemmed from the methodologies of demonstration. Protests were designed to be peaceful but have sometimes turned chaotic. Demonstrations have created necessary tensions over the years to push for social change. Similarly, protests in the mid-twentieth century also included picketing, marches, and demonstrations in the bid to offset social injustices (Mohammed, 2020). According to Staub-Bernasconi (2016), the effectiveness of civil rights movements is undoubted, but just like in the past, civil rights leaders face criticism on their moral obligation to control the protest environment. Then, propaganda to delegitimize the civil rights movements was emanated by segregationists. Social media, in the contemporary world, has been used to question the moral authority of protests through unfiltered opinions.
Obligation to Continuation of ‘Good Trouble’
Change in societal perspective and policy changes are mutually exclusive (Davis and Reber, 2016). For example, today’s call for policing reforms cannot happen without an appeal to people’s conscience. The injustices had been tolerated for years but the footage of Floyd George inspired a multiracial and multigenerational protest. Each protestor is standing up to indifference, hostility, and the undignified murder of a human being. The Black Lives Matter movement should be stepping in stone in the push for equality in every sphere of our lives.
According to Davis and Reber, (2016), people, both white and black, need to evaluate their privileged positions. People need to take a stand and push for positive social change if privileged positions come from a rigged system made against others. Just like John Lewis mantra on good trouble, social work practitioners are obligated to support disenfranchised communities amidst any backlash. The recently deceased Civil rights activists, John Lewis and Rev. C.T Vivian have been perfect examples of courage in action. The success of their grassroots efforts in various causes proved that active engagement at the community level is instrumental in raising national dialogue on important issues (Hernderson, 2020). In social work practice, if certain interventions and rules are unjust or unfair, a practitioner has the moral obligation to expose, address, and criticize them to ensure the upholding of dignity and respect for fellow man.
In conclusion, the aforementioned discussions have truly portrayed social work and human rights as inseparable. Human rights are essential in social work practice as it directs the decisions about the care of an individual. Certainly, they are no one way of practice, but the core principles of practice should always be to promote the dignity and respect of clients as embedded in the NASW code of ethics. History and recent events on civil rights prescribe people advocating for social change to be diversity driven, emotionally resilient, and courageous. Dr. King’s letter exceptional illustration of the multi-faceted nature of social movements and their underlying reasons give social workers an idea of what they might face in the pursuit. Additionally, it justifies the need for social justice.
References
Davis, A., & Reber, D. (2016). Advancing Human Rights and Social and Economic Justice: Developing Competence in Field Education. Journal Of Human Rights And Social Work, 1(3), 143-153. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-016-0016-x
Hernderson, C. (2020). ‘John Lewis: Good Trouble’: 5 lessons from the documentary that still apply today. USA TODAY. https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/3240269001.
King jr., (1963). Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]. Africa.upenn.edu. https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.
Mohammed, I. (2020). Human Rights and Social Work Values. SocialWorker.com. https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/practice/human-rights-and-social-work-values/.
Staub-Bernasconi, S. (2016). Social Work and Human Rights—Linking Two Traditions of Human Rights in Social Work. Journal Of Human Rights And Social Work, 1(1), 40-49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-016-0005-0