The Prison Sentence of the American Student

Last updated on: January 10, 2023 at 6:47 pm by Edward Lewis

The Prison Sentence of the American Student 2023-01-10T18:47:00-04:00 Edward Lewis

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I think, when students complain of having to be in school, as if it’s a prison sentence (which it is), it will be good to remind them that this was written from a jail cell.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. 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. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Suffering doesn’t always lead to creative work, but I doubt creative work is possible without it, even in small doses. I remember, as a student, complaining about those contemptible compulsory attendance laws. No teacher ever acknowledge the plain truth – that school is, indeed, a “sentence” and that miserable students are justified in their feelings. The important point, then, is how do we respond to that frustration? There isn’t a correct answer to this question, but Martin Luther King Jr. gives us a heroic example.

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