II. Cloze
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.
