King uses the metaphor of a race to explain that the nations of Asia and Africa are moving with "jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, yet they still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee." It's easy for people who haven't experienced segregation to say, "wait". King continues to use his polite tone by saying he "hopes that people can understand the despair they feel and their unavoidable patience.".
King alludes to St. Augustine by agreeing that "an unjust law is no law at all". He uses an appeal to logic by saying that " a just law is one that squares with moral law". King urges men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right and disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong. King makes allusions to philosophers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, while explaining the difference between just and unjust laws.
King has almost reached the conclusion that it is the white moderate, devoted to "order", which causes segregation. King uses a metaphor to explain that the white moderates have become the "dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress". Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates. King uses the simile, " like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened within its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light", to stress that injustice needs to be brought to the human conscience in order to be stopped.
Through a series of rhetorical questions, King asks if condemning their actions is a logical assertion. He asks, " isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?" He metaphorically makes clear that now is the time to lift the national policy from "the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.".
King is grateful to God that through the influence of the Negro church, the way of non-violence became an integral part of their struggle.
