| History Dictionary: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” |
(1963) A letter that Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed to his fellow clergymen while he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, after a nonviolent protest against racial segregation (see also sit-ins). King defended the apparent impatience of people in the civil rights movement, maintaining that without forceful actions like his, equal rights for black people would never be gained. King upheld the general use of nonviolent
| Wikipedia: Letter from Birmingham Jail |
The Letter from Birmingham Jail or Letter from Birmingham City Jail, is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King, Jr., an American civil rights leader. King wrote the letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was confined after being arrested for his part in the Birmingham campaign, a planned non-violent protest conducted by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference against racial segregation by Birmingham's city government and downtown retailers.
King's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963, titled "A Call For Unity". The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets. King responded that without nonviolent forceful direct actions such as his, true civil rights could never be achieved. As he put it, "This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'" He asserted that not only was civil disobedience justified in the face of unjust laws, but that "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
Extensive excerpts from the letter were published, without Dr. King's consent, on May 19, 1963 in the New York Post Sunday Magazine. [1] The letter was first published as "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in the June 12, 1963, edition of The Christian Century,[2] and in the June 24, 1963, issue of The New Leader. It was reprinted shortly thereafter in The Atlantic Monthly. King included the full text in his 1964 book Why We Can't Wait.
The letter includes the famous statement "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," as well as the words attributed to William E. Gladstone quoted by King: "[J]ustice too long delayed is justice denied."
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Letter from a Birmingham Jail |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | Poisonville (2001 Album by Ronny Elliott) |
| Martin Luther King Jr (literature) |
| "Letter From Birmingham Jail" |
 | What aspect of society is criticized in Theme for english b Harrison bergeron Letter from birmingham jail and Ballad of birmingham? Read answer... |
| What was the significances letter from a Birmingham Jail'? Read answer... |
| When did MLK recieve a Letter from a Birmingham Jail? Read answer... |
 | Was the Letter from a Birmingham jail written in response to a letter from president Kennedy? |
| The theme of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail? |
| How many pages was the letter from birmingham jail? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Read more |
Mentioned in
|
