 So, the three steps that King says that you must take before direct nonviolent action. The first is investigation, the second is negotiation, and the third is purification. Now, investigation is diving into trying to figure out whether there is in fact an unjust law or whether an otherwise just law is being enforced unjustly. So, the prime example of the unjust laws that King is dealing with here in this letter are what are called the Jim Crow laws. Now, these laws segregate the separate but equal laws. They segregate black citizens from white citizens. And King is very clear, it's not hard to figure out that these are unjust laws because they establish this I-it relationship. Because this is where he gets some of his justification from natural law theory. And yeah, it treats black citizens as objects, right? They don't have rights. I mean, I guess they're kind of, I keep saying they were citizens, but it's kind of difficult to figure out how they are citizens under Jim Crow laws. I mean, they're certainly called citizens, they deserve to be citizens, but they're certainly, they're not treated like citizens. They're not treated like citizens. So that's the first step, whether a law is unjust or an otherwise just law is enforced unjustly. So, traffic laws, all the things considered equal are just, but they can be enforced unjustly. You can use them to control or regulate or press one group of people within a population rather than another. So that's investigation. Investigation, by the way, is not, at least it doesn't really kind of explicitly state this. Investigation is not figuring out who's to blame. You know, the investigation is just whether the laws are unjust or enforced unjustly. Now that's going to be important later on, right? And, you know, King is, it certainly doesn't say we're going to find out who's to blame, but I also think that he would avoid something like that. I know it seems a little shocking, but bear with me. So that's investigation. A second step is negotiation. Negotiation is when you try to, you know, get the authorities to the negotiating table and to either change the unjust law or to have the just law enforced justly. Now, you know, one thing to kind of note about this is that, you know, at least as King describes it, this is not just a one-shot attempt, right? So they done the investigation, they figured out that there's injustice here. Negotiation is like, hey, let's come to the negotiating table. You and I, and we're going to work this out. We're going to work this out through reason. We're going to work this out through mutual benefit. We're going to work this out through negotiation. And it's not just once. It's not like you send the invitation, they refuse like, oh, okay, I guess we're done. The way King describes it, they sent the invitation, it was refused. They sent the invitation again, it was refused. Again, it's kind of going back and forth until they finally accept it. Then they accepted the invitation, it didn't show up. So he sent the invitation again, they accepted it, it didn't show up. They accepted the invitation again, accepted it, it didn't show up. Until they finally start showing up. Then they got them to the table, they showed up, and they couldn't get the other side to agree upon anything. And you might think, okay, well, after you at least get them to talk and agree upon, then you give up. No, King kept pushing negotiation. He was exhausting every last opportunity for negotiation to work. He didn't want to get to a direct nonviolent action. I mean, I really think in King's mind, if they got to negotiation and the laws were changed, hey, you know, this is great, you don't need to go any further. Well, I mean, that's kind of what happened, right? Because they got them to the negotiating table, they got them to make some concessions to agree to make some changes, but then they broke the promises. So King tried it again, and they made promises and they kept breaking them. So, you know, after a certain number of times where they make promises and they continually break them, it's like, okay, well, now negotiation is not doing any good. We give them every last opportunity to change. They said they were going to change. They broke their promises. You know, it's nothing else you can do as far as negotiation is concerned. So, you know, imagine after this point after negotiation, they make up their mind, okay, we're going to do direct nonviolent action, but they had to prepare for it. They have to train themselves. And I use the word train very literally. Purification, the point of purification is to be able to answer anger and abuse with passiveness, being a pacifist. Being a pacifist is not easy. It takes strength to fight, right, strength. You've got to have strong arms to actually engage in combat, but to be a pacifist takes probably stronger will, right, because you're getting hit and abused and just absolutely tortured. I'll use that word tortured, right, and they didn't fight back. They could have, but they didn't. And that's what purification is. Purification isn't, you know, this process where you say, aha, I am better than you. I can tell you why I'm better than you, because you've been unjust and I haven't. That's not purification. Purification is not this, you know, process by which you would make your soul right with God. He's not even doing that, right? You know, King's certainly a preacher, but that's not even what he's talking about. Purification is, you know, they train themselves and I've seen some videos. I can't find them anymore. I don't know what happened to them, but I have seen some videos for these training workshops where they are yelling at each other in each other's faces. I mean, like drill sergeant yelling at each other. And they're accepting the abuse. They even, I think, what was that? I think there was at least something, you know, slapping, like open hand slapping, trying to get people used to the idea of saying, yeah, you're going to get hit. You know, if you can't do that part, if you can't do the purification part, King's, you know, it's like, no, don't, don't go on through direct nonviolent action because you can't do it. You'll go violent. You'll, you'll, you'll hit back. Okay. So those are the three steps. Investigation, negotiation, purification. You take those steps. You have to take those steps according to King before you even get to any direct nonviolent action. And if he can't do it, he says, you know, don't. Don't even, don't even get started. Don't hit the streets because you're not ready.