In A Human Rights Odyssey,  Student Rabbi Isaac Levin testifies on behalf of a congregant in a Birmingham courtroom.  His congregant was unjustly accused of causing an obstruction at Birmingham High Street Station (Birmingham, England) and Levin saw everything.  While sitting in traffic court and waiting to be called to testify, he witnessed people of color, often uneducated, being slapped with huge fines for relatively minor traffic violations.  While Levin's congregants case was dismissed, the people of color did not have the wherewithal to defend themselves.  He wrote of his experience to his Black friend, Jeremy, who was currently living in St. Louis.  His letter was entitled, Letter from a Birmingham Courtroom,  which deliberately alluded to Martin Luther King's, Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  Jeremy reminded him that such incidents were part of everyday life for Black people. 

Isaac Levin later becomes a part-time chaplain at a state penitentiary in Michigan and witnesses both mass incarceration and violation of prisoners' civil rights,  He noted that both he and Martin Luther King went to jail for a living.  MLK aroused consciousness from the inside.  Levin aroused consciousness by working on the outside and by becoming a major player in the civil right lawsuit, Whitney v. Brown.

A thought for Martin Luther King weekend.