Turquoise water flows through a small wooden dam bordered by rocks and low plants.

Original artwork, not a still

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and ... when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Law and order, the writer argues, are only worth having if they deliver justice. When they don't, they stop being useful structures and become dams, holding back the current of social progress instead of guiding it. The metaphor pictures rigid rules as barriers against a river of change.

Context reviewed

Share this quote