A Passage-Based Focus Freewrite on for MLKJ's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

"I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait.  But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television and see the tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?' when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' men and 'colored' when your first name becomes 'nigger' and your middle becomes 'boy' (however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title of 'Mrs.' when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and other resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness' - then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.  There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair.  I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience." - Martin Luther King Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

When first reading this letter this is the passage that affected me the most.  The way M.L. King Junior uses so many devices like parallel structure and imagery really brought the issue at hand.  I could truly picture all the things that he said, and feel the tug at my heartstrings.  Honestly, how could we have let these situations go on for so long?  What kind of world is this when we make young children at just the ages of six and five doubt themselves and question why they are treated so horribly due to the color of their skin?  I don't know how anyone could ever be unaffected after reading this passion-filled passage of "agonizing pathos"?  The issue of segregation is one that must be dealt with at once.  No longer can we just sit by when every day that goes by another person is being hurt whether it be physically(ex: "vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim"), mentally (ex: "living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and other resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'"), and/or emotionally (ex: "depressing clouds of inferiority").  Enough is enough.  They have waited way too long for things to remain the same.  It is time that a stand is made to fight against such injustice.  This is the reason why we needed the Civil Rights Movement, and why it needed to succeed.  Otherwise, many of the people we see here everyday wouldn't be here doing what they're doing.  After all, how many whites are there?