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A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ is Martin Luther King’s most famous written text, and rivals his most celebrated speech, ‘ I Have a Dream ’, for its political importance and rhetorical power.

King wrote this open letter in April 1963 while he was imprisoned in the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama. When he read a statement issued in the newspaper by eight of his fellow clergymen, King began to compose his response, initially writing it in the margins of the newspaper article itself.

In ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’, King answers some of the criticisms he had received from the clergymen in their statement, and makes the case for nonviolent action to bring about an end to racial segregation in the South. You can read the letter in full here if you would like to read King’s words before reading on to our summary of his argument, and analysis of the letter’s meaning and significance.

‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’: summary

The letter is dated 16 April 1963. King begins by addressing his ‘fellow clergymen’ who wrote the statement published in the newspaper. In this statement, they had criticised King’s political activities ‘unwise and untimely’. King announces that he will respond to their criticisms because he believes they are ‘men of genuine good will’.

King outlines why he is in Birmingham: as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he was invited by an affiliate group in Birmingham to engage in a non-violent direct-action program: he accepted. When the time came, he honoured his promise and came to Birmingham to support the action.

But there is a bigger reason for his travelling to Birmingham: because injustice is found there, and, in a famous line, King asserts: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ The kind of direction action King and others have engaged in around Birmingham is a last resort because negotiations have broken down and promises have been broken.

When there is no alternative, direct action – such as sit-ins and marches – can create what King calls a ‘tension’ which will mean that a community which previously refused to negotiate will be forced to come to the negotiating table. King likens this to the ‘tension’ in the individual human mind which Socrates, the great classical philosopher, fostered through his teachings.

Next, King addresses the accusation that the action he and others are taking in Birmingham is ‘untimely’. King points out that the newly elected mayor of the city, like the previous incumbent, is in favour of racial segregation and thus wishes to preserve the political status quo so far as race is concerned. As King observes, privileged people seldom give up their privileges voluntarily: hence the need for nonviolent pressure.

King now turns to the question of law-breaking. How can he and others justify breaking the law? He quotes St. Augustine, who said that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’ A just law uplifts human personality and is consistent with the moral law and God’s law. An unjust law degrades human personality and contradicts the moral law (and God’s law). Because segregation encourages one group of people to view themselves as superior to another group, it is unjust.

He also asserts that he believes the greatest stumbling-block to progress is not the far-right white supremacist but the ‘white moderate’ who are wedded to the idea of ‘order’ in the belief that order is inherently right. King points out both in the Bible (the story of Shadrach and the fiery furnace ) and in America’s own colonial history (the Boston Tea Party ) people have practised a form of ‘civil disobedience’, breaking one set of laws because a higher law was at stake.

King addresses the objection that his actions, whilst nonviolent themselves, may encourage others to commit violence in his name. He rejects this argument, pointing out that this kind of logic (if such it can be called) can be extended to all sorts of scenarios. Do we blame a man who is robbed because his possession of wealth led the robber to steal from him?

The next criticism which King addresses is the notion that he is an extremist. He contrasts his nonviolent approach with that of other African-American movements in the US, namely the black nationalist movements which view the white man as the devil. King points out that he has tried to steer a path between extremists on either side, but he is still labelled an ‘extremist’.

He decides to own the label, and points out that Jesus could be regarded as an ‘extremist’ because, out of step with the worldview of his time, he championed love of one’s enemies.

Other religious figures, as well as American political figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, might be called ‘extremists’ for their unorthodox views (for their time). Jefferson, for example, was considered an extremist for arguing, in the opening words to the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal. ‘Extremism’ doesn’t have to mean one is a violent revolutionary: it can simply denote extreme views that one holds.

King expresses his disappointment with the white church for failing to stand with him and other nonviolent activists campaigning for an end to racial segregation. People in the church have made a variety of excuses for not supporting racial integration.

The early Christian church was much more prepared to fight for what it believed to be right, but it has grown weak and complacent. Rather than being disturbers of the peace, many Christians are now upholders of the status quo.

Martin Luther King concludes his letter by arguing that he and his fellow civil rights activists will achieve their freedom, because the goal of America as a nation has always been freedom, going back to the founding of the United States almost two centuries earlier. He provides several examples of the quiet courage shown by those who had engaged in nonviolent protest in the South.

‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’: analysis

Martin Luther King’s open letter written from Birmingham Jail is one of the most famous open letters in the world. It is also a well-known defence of the notion of civil disobedience, or refusing to obey laws which are immoral or unjust, often through peaceful protest and collective action.

King answers each of the clergymen’s objections in turn, laying out his argument in calm, rational, but rhetorically brilliant prose. The emphasis throughout is non nonviolent action, or peaceful protest, which King favours rather than violent acts such as rioting (which, he points out, will alienate many Americans who might otherwise support the cause for racial integration).

In this, Martin Luther King was greatly influenced by the example of Mahatma Gandhi , who had led the Indian struggle for independence earlier in the twentieth century, advocating for nonviolent resistance to British rule in India. Another inspiration for King was Henry David Thoreau, whose 1849 essay ‘ Civil Disobedience ’ called for ordinary citizens to refuse to obey laws which they consider unjust.

This question of what is a ‘just’ law and what is an ‘unjust’ law is central to King’s defence of his political approach as laid out in the letter from Birmingham Jail. He points out that everything Hitler did in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s was ‘legal’, because the Nazis changed the laws to suit their ideology and political aims. But this does not mean that what they did was moral : quite the opposite.

Similarly, it would have been ‘illegal’ to come to the aid of a Jew in Nazi Germany, but King states that he would have done so, even though, by helping and comforting a Jewish person, he would have been breaking the law. So instead of the view that ‘law’ and ‘justice’ are synonymous, ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ is a powerful argument for obeying a higher moral law rather than manmade laws which suit those in power.

But ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ is also notable for the thoughtful and often surprising things King does with his detractors’ arguments. For instance, where we might expect him to object to being called an ‘extremist’, he embraces the label, observing that some of the most pious and peaceful figures in history have been ‘extremists’ of one kind of another. But they have called for extreme love, justice, and tolerance, rather than extreme hate, division, or violence.

Similarly, King identifies white moderates as being more dangerous to progress than white nationalists, because they believe in ‘order’ rather than ‘justice’ and thus they can sound rational and sympathetic even as they stand in the way of racial integration and civil rights. As with the ‘extremist’ label, King’s position here may take us by surprise, but he backs up his argument carefully and provides clear reasons for his stance.

There are two main frames of reference in the letter. One is Christian examples: Jesus, St. Paul, and Amos, the Old Testament prophet , are all mentioned, with King drawing parallels between their actions and those of the civil rights activists participating in direct action.

The other is examples from American history: Abraham Lincoln (who issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War, a century before King was writing) and Thomas Jefferson (who drafted the words to the Declaration of Independence, including the statement that all men are created equal).

Both Christianity and America have personal significance for King, who was a reverend as well as a political campaigner and activist. But these frames of reference also establish a common ground between both him and the clergymen he addresses, and, more widely, with many other Americans who will read the open letter.

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"Letter from Birmingham Jail"

April 16, 1963

As the events of the Birmingham Campaign intensified on the city’s streets, Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in Birmingham in response to local religious leaders’ criticisms of the campaign: “Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?” (King, Why , 94–95).

King’s 12 April 1963 arrest for violating Alabama’s law against mass public demonstrations took place just over a week after the campaign’s commencement. In an effort to revive the campaign, King and Ralph Abernathy had donned work clothes and marched from Sixth Avenue Baptist Church into a waiting police wagon. The day of his arrest, eight Birmingham clergy members wrote a criticism of the campaign that was published in the Birmingham News , calling its direct action strategy “unwise and untimely” and appealing “to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense” (“White Clergymen Urge”).

Following the initial circulation of King’s letter in Birmingham as a mimeographed copy, it was published in a variety of formats: as a pamphlet distributed by the American Friends Service Committee and as an article in periodicals such as Christian Century , Christianity and Crisis , the New York Post , and Ebony magazine. The first half of the letter was introduced into testimony before Congress by Representative William Fitts Ryan (D–NY) and published in the Congressional Record . One year later, King revised the letter and presented it as a chapter in his 1964 memoir of the Birmingham Campaign, Why We Can’t Wait , a book modeled after the basic themes set out in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

In Why We Can’t Wait , King recalled in an author’s note accompanying the letter’s republication how the letter was written. It was begun on pieces of newspaper, continued on bits of paper supplied by a black trustee, and finished on paper pads left by King’s attorneys. After countering the charge that he was an “outside agitator” in the body of the letter, King sought to explain the value of a “nonviolent campaign” and its “four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action” (King, Why , 79). He went on to explain that the purpose of direct action was to create a crisis situation out of which negotiation could emerge.

The body of King’s letter called into question the clergy’s charge of “impatience” on the part of the African American community and of the “extreme” level of the campaign’s actions (“White Clergymen Urge”). “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’” King wrote. “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’” (King, Why , 83). He articulated the resentment felt “when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait” (King, Why , 84). King justified the tactic of civil disobedience by stating that, just as the Bible’s Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar’s unjust laws and colonists staged the Boston Tea Party, he refused to submit to laws and injunctions that were employed to uphold segregation and deny citizens their rights to peacefully assemble and protest.

King also decried the inaction of white moderates such as the clergymen, charging that human progress “comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation” (King, Why , 89). He prided himself as being among “extremists” such as Jesus, the prophet Amos, the apostle Paul, Martin Luther, and Abraham Lincoln, and observed that the country as a whole and the South in particular stood in need of creative men of extreme action. In closing, he hoped to meet the eight fellow clergymen who authored the first letter.

Garrow, Bearing the Cross , 1986.

King, “A Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Ebony (August 1963): 23–32.

King, “From the Birmingham Jail,” Christianity and Crisis 23 (27 May 1963): 89–91.

King, “From the Birmingham Jail,” Christian Century 80 (12 June 1963): 767–773.

King, “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, May 1963).

King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in Why We Can’t Wait , 1964.

Reverend Martin Luther King Writes from Birmingham City Jail—Part I , 88th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record (11 July 1963): A 4366–4368.

“White Clergymen Urge Local Negroes to Withdraw from Demonstrations,” Birmingham News , 13 April 1963.

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Course: US history > Unit 11

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Letter from a Birmingham Jail

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Teaching ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’

The open letter by Martin Luther King Jr. is an excellent resource for teaching persuasive writing and much more.

Martin Luther King in jail in Birmingham, Alabama

If I could teach only one text, it would be Martin Luther King Jr.’s “ Letter from Birmingham Jail ” (LBJ).

What first draws students is the author. Most have heard excerpts from “I Have a Dream,” but few of them know that King was also a powerful writer. My rural Southern students’ respect for King’s reputation is enough to pique their curiosity, but they are usually intimidated by the length of the piece (“This is a letter!”). To encourage them, I highlight that he wrote the letter while he was in solitary confinement. This fact creates another point of connection, especially for the African American males, many of whom have already had their own conflicts with law enforcement or almost certainly know someone who has.

This reading comes as the centerpiece of a unit on persuasive writing. LBJ is one of two great examples of persuasive writing, the other being the Declaration of Independence, which we read first. Like Thomas Jefferson, King uses classical logic, including a well-structured categorical syllogism, to defend his ideas.

The letter is divided into 10 sections, each either responding to a charge or making a challenge. Using the jigsaw reading technique, one or more students analyze each section of the letter, identifying the rhetorical techniques used and evaluating how successful that section might have been with the target audience. Then, putting our evaluations together, we look at what we have learned from King about earning respectful consideration for one’s ideas.

The rich historical allusions in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” entice and reward additional study. For example, King cites the long global tradition of civil disobedience, from Socrates to the Boston Tea Party. He also references a thoughtful blend of biblical and classical literature. He introduces my students to some of the great thinkers of the ages, including T. S. Elliot and Reinhold Niebuhr. Using these sources as markers, King places the civil rights struggle in its context as part of a longer, larger human story.

A Lesson in Civil Rights

LBJ is a primer on the civil rights movement, specifically 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, which was a critical point in the struggle for human rights. King methodically outlines the four steps taken by the civil rights activists during a campaign: collecting information, negotiations, self-purification, and direct action. The letter animates historical terms such as interposition , states’ rights , and nullification by showing the human cost of social change. Students marvel that after failing to achieve change through talks, the activists spent days or even weeks training themselves not to respond violently to brutal treatment.

Since the events of 1963 are ancient history to today’s students, I usually preface the study of the letter with a discussion of the documentary Mighty Times: The Children’s March , which is available from Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance). The documentary highlights the role of school-age children in the fight against segregation in Birmingham. Along with King, thousands of students volunteered to violate the city’s segregation laws and be jailed, some for up to two weeks. My students are particularly impressed that teenagers like themselves played such key and sacrificial roles in the fight for equality.

Exemplary Writing

As a writing text, LBJ is elegant and passionate. It contains a challenging range of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stylistic elements, and ideas. For instance, in response to the charge that the Black people of Birmingham were being premature and impatient in their use of demonstrations to end segregation, King vividly transports the readers into the daily life of a Black father in the Jim Crow South using a stream-of-consciousness technique:

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But… when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your 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 tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people…

In passages such as this, I show students the value of detailed evidence and appeal to empathy in support of a persuasive point.

Likewise, answering the charge that he is a political extremist, King first redefines himself as “stand[ing] in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community.” Then, with rhetorical deftness, he realigns himself and the civil rights movement alongside some of history’s most celebrated extremists, including Martin Luther and Thomas Jefferson.

One of the most difficult concepts to teach novice writers about persuasion is the importance of writing for a specific audience. King writes to an ecumenical group of fellow clergymen, who had written a public letter deploring the use of direct, nonviolent actions. He establishes both his connection and credibility with his readers, while also chiding them for their own hypocrisy to the mission of the Christian church (with a nod to Greek mythology).

I appreciate that “Letter from Birmingham Jail” easily lends itself to many teaching approaches, to integrated subject content, and to student creativity. As a literary work, it can be a launching point, a bridge, or a culminating piece. There always seems to be more to discover and never enough time, which is why I continue to revisit it alongside my students.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martin luther king, jr., ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Letter from Birmingham Jail: Introduction

Letter from birmingham jail: plot summary, letter from birmingham jail: detailed summary & analysis, letter from birmingham jail: themes, letter from birmingham jail: quotes, letter from birmingham jail: characters, letter from birmingham jail: terms, letter from birmingham jail: symbols, letter from birmingham jail: theme wheel, brief biography of martin luther king, jr..

Historical Context of Letter from Birmingham Jail

Other books related to letter from birmingham jail.

Full Title: Letter from Birmingham Jail
When Written: April 1963
Where Written: Birmingham City Jail
When Published: May 19, 1963 (excerpts) in The New York Post Sunday Magazine and later in 1963 in its entirety in Liberation , The Christian Century , and The New Leader magazines
Literary Period: Civil Rights Movement
Genre: Essay
Setting: Birmingham, Alabama
Antagonist: The eight white clergymen, authors of “A Call for Unity”
Point of View: First person

Extra Credit for Letter from Birmingham Jail

A Letter in Pieces. While in the Birmingham City jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. had little access to the outside world, and was only able to read “A Call to Unity” when a trusted friend smuggled the newspaper into his jail cell. King wrote his response in the margins of the paper, in pieces, and they were smuggled back out to a fellow pastor, who had the responsibility of piecing the letter back together again.

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Rhetorical Analysis of The Letter from Birmingham Jail

Categories: Letter From Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King

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Published: Dec 16, 2021

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In Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he employs various rhetorical strategies to convey his message and justify the Civil Rights Movement. King establishes his credibility and ethos by referencing his organizational ties and his role as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He effectively uses pathos to elicit strong emotional responses from the audience, describing the trials and suffering of African Americans, both past and present. Through vivid imagery and emotional language, King paints a compelling picture of the injustices faced by his community.

Furthermore, King appeals to logos by questioning the meaning of a "just law" and providing historical examples of unjust laws and extremist figures who brought about positive change. He uses these examples to challenge the moral compass of his audience and make them reflect on their own beliefs.

King's use of repetition and rhetorical questions enhances the impact of his arguments and engages the audience on a deeper level. By posing questions and repeating key phrases, he encourages his readers to consider the consequences of indifference and the necessity of immediate action.

Rhetorical appeals in the letter from birmingham jail.

Fulkerson, R. P. (1979). The public letter as a rhetorical form: Structure, logic, and style in king’s “letter from Birmingham jail”. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 65(2), 121-136. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335637909383465?journalCode=rqjs20)
King Jr, M. L. (1992). Letter from Birmingham jail. UC Davis L. Rev., 26, 835. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/davlr26&div=31&id=&page=)
Leff, M. C., & Utley, E. A. (2004). Instrumental and Constitutive Rhetoric in Martin Luther King Jr.’s” Letter from Birmingham Jail”. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 7(1), 37-51. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/26/article/55773/summary)
Mott, W. T. (1975). The Rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from Birmingham Jail. Phylon (1960-), 36(4), 411-421. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/274640)
Miller, J. (2009). Integration, transformation and the redemption of America: The Fire Next Time and A Letter from Birmingham Jail. European Journal of American Culture, 28(3), 245-262. (https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ejac.28.3.245_1?crawler=true)

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The Rhetorical Situation of Letter from Birmingham Jail

As the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s unfolded, Martin Luther King Jr. had, perhaps, the most encompassing and personal rhetorical situation to face in American history. In Letter From Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King responds to the subjectivity of law and the issue he paramounts by using precise and impactful rhetoric from inside of his jail cell. While this fight had been raging for nearly 10 years, the release in 1963 was shortly followed by the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Martin Luther leading peaceful Birmingham protest, AP News

Lloyd Bitzer describes rhetorical situation as, “a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action to bring about the significant modification of the exigence” (6). In sum, all rhetoric has an external situation in which it is responding to. Analysing a rhetorical situation clarifies why a text was created, the purpose in which it was written, and why the author made specific choices while writing it. There are three main considerations to make while analysing a rhetorical situation: the constraints, the exigence, and the audience. Constraints bring light to the obstacles this rhetoric may face, whether it be social, political, economical, etc. and may encompass the audience, as seen while analysing Letter From Birmingham Jail. The audience of a rhetorical piece will shape the rhetoric the author uses in order to appeal, brazen, or educate whoever is exposed. Lastly, the exigence of a rhetorical piece is the external issue, situation, or event in which the rhetoric is responding to. All of these factors influence each other to shape rhetoric, which Bitzer describes as, “pragmatic; it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself” (3), with Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail being a shining example.

In Letter From Birmingham Jail, the exigence is the continued condemnation, segregation, and prejudice afflicted against African Americans since the emancipation of the slaves in 1863. However, the racial divide was legislated in 1877 with the implementation of Jim Crow laws, which lasted until 1950. While the Civil Rights movement superseded the dismantling of Jim Crow, the social ideologies and lackadaisical legislature behind anti-black prejudice continued to rack the country far into the 1960’s. King was the figurehead of the Civil Rights movement, infamous for his “I Have a Dream” speech and substantially impactful rhetoric promoting social and political change, peaceful indignation, and calls to awareness. Martin Luther found himself arrested on the twelfth of April 1963 after leading a peaceful protest throughout Birmingham, Alabama “after he defied a state court’s injunction and led a march of black protesters without a permit, urging an Easter boycott of white-owned stores” (Jr., Martin Luther King). The eight clergymen in Birmingham released a public statement of caution regarding the protesters actions as “unwise and untimely” (King 1), to which Martin’s letter is a direct response. This protest, his subsequent arrest, and the clergymen’s public statement ostensibly make up the rhetorical exigence, but it truly stems from a much larger and dangerous situation at hand: the overwhelming state of anti-black prejudice spread socially, systematically, and legislatively in America since the country’s implementation of slavery in Jamestown, 1619. This exigence is rhetorical because it can be improved if enough people are socially cognizant, whether that be in legislature or the streets of Birmingham, through creation and enforcement of equitable laws and social attitudes. These circumstances lead us to our next rhetorical focus: audience. Who was he truly writing for?

The audience of Letter From Birmingham Jail was initially the eight clergymen of Birmingham, all white and in positions of religious leadership. However, in the months that followed, King’s powerful words were distributed to the public through civil right’s committees, the press, and was even read in testimony before Congress (‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’), taking the country by storm. While his letter was only addressed to the clergymen, it is safe to assume that King had intent on the public eventually reading his letter, considering his position within the Civil Rights movement, use of persuasive rhetorical language, and hard-hitting debates on the justification of law. With this addressed, his audience was truly the population of the United States, especially Birmingham, with a focus on those who withheld and complied with the oppression of African American citizens, even if not intentionally. This audience is rhetorical as the social and political ideologies of the American people fuel democracy and are able to change the system around them through collective effort. His writing is respectful and educated, if not naturally, to invalidate the use of his race against him by the largely prejudiced audience. It’s important to note that his initial readers/supporters greatly impacted the scope of his audience, spreading the letter through handouts, flyers, and press, in the hopes that others would be impacted for the better by the weight of the exigence at hand. His audience ranged between those who his message empowered, a radical positive force, and those who disagreed, made up of southern states, extremist groups, and the majority of American citizens stuck in their racial prejudices. Despite his support, Martin Luther’s audience is one of the largest constraints in his rhetorical situation.

The constraints surrounding Martin Luther King’s rhetorical situation include the audience, the rhetorical exigence of the situation he is responding to, Dr. King himself, and the medium, all of which are deeply connected. Firstly, and most daunting, is the constraint of the letter’s audience. Initially, the eight Birmingham clergymen are the audience and while they were not overtly racist, King uses rhetoric meant to have them understand his urgency. As mentioned before, the social and political ideologies in America surrounding racial equity at this time, specifically in Birmingham, were extremely poor. While his supporters nation-wide were avid, determined, and hopeful, they were challenged by the opposing, vastly white population, comfortable in their segregated establishments and racist ideologies who would certainly weaponize his viewpoints. Not only was this a social division, but those who opposed King were reinforced by the respective legislature that sought to burden him. Despite his opposition, however, the letter is truly addressed to those who were not against King, but did not understand the urgency of his movement. The letter goes on to explain his choice to act directly and nonviolently, stating, “For years now I have heard the word ‘wait.’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never’ (King 2). King chose to write this for a reason; to resonate with those who were not his enemies but who held back the movement through compliance. It was important for King to address this audience as their support would ultimately make the largest difference in the movement. The biases of the audience go hand in hand with the rhetorical exigence of this letter, another large constraint in the effectiveness of his message. The continuous mistreatment of African Americans for over a century was, at last, deeply questioned and challenged nationwide with the growing popularity of the Civil Rights movement, and the topic of equality for all had divided the country. All of this accumulates into an unwavering social constraint placed on Martin Luther King’s rhetorical text. To minimize the possibility of being deemed invalid due to his race, he must choose what he states and how he states it very precisely which correlates to the constraints Martin Luther himself has on his rhetorical situation.

As a black man and pacifist-forward figurehead of the Civil Rights movement, the way Martin Luther is perceived is mostly dictated by preconceived biases and is rampant, widespread, and polarized.

Martin Luther in Birmingham Jail, The Atlantic

Furthermore, exterior events regarding the movement could ultimately reflect on his influence and polarize the audience further. Greater importance is placed on his tone, choice of words, choice of argument, and credibility, for better or for worse, and he must carefully make rhetorical decisions, not only because of his race. At this time, he is representative of the Black American population and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole– he is Martin Luther King Jr., and while this is a powerful position to occupy, the constraints imposed are just as dominant. Ultimately, he effectively tackles societal constraints, whether it be audience bias, historical racism, or how he is viewed by using the power of his rhetoric to his advantage. King spins the constraining pressure to properly represent the movement on its head, using his rhetoric to uplift the underprivileged and leave no room in his language for criticism, proven by the continuous adoption of his messages by the public.

Lastly, King is constrained by his medium. A letter, as a medium, is constraining as there is one definitive original copy, it is addressed to a small specific group, and since it cannot be directly broadcasted widely, opposed to television or radio, it must be printed or passed along analogically. Whether this be by newspaper, flyers, or restated by another in speech, the spread of information is slower and potentially more controllable. The letter was written April third, 1963, it was published for the public in June of the same year, a slower spread than a nationwide address on television or radio. Additionally, personable elements such as tone, inflection, and overall vindication behind the letter are left to be determined by the rhetorical language. There may have been advantages to broadcasting this message similarly to his “I Have a Dream” speech, which touched America deeply, due potentially to the accessible, instantaneous, and widespread coverage in American media. He was able to further interact with the audience; they were able to hear his voice, listen to the intended tone behind his words, see his face, and study his demeanor in the face of adversary. However, this constraint did not ultimately halt the spread of King’s message nation-wide, as it became a persuasive landmark of the civil rights movement, likely due to both his impactful position and persuasive use of rhetoric.

To truly understand the effectiveness of this letter, one must rhetorically analyse the contents. Martin Luther utilizes powerful rhetoric to define his exigence. He begins strongly by explaining why he is in Birmingham in the first place, stating, “So I am here…because we were invited here. I am here because I have basic organizational ties here” (King 1), after describing his involvement in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as president. He goes on to add; “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here” (King 1). At the time, Birmingham was one of the harshest places to live in America for African Americans; white supremacy groups would set off bombs to instill fear in the black community and withhold racial integration, and peaceful protests and sit-ins were met with unjustifiable police violence, in addition to the suffocating social qualms surrounding the black community (Eskew). Consequently, Birmingham became the core of the Civil Rights movement, pumping the life-blood of social change into the rest of the country. Being nearly symbolic, King being held prisoner in Birmingham, the most polar racial arena of the United States, made his rhetoric more effective. It elucidated the exigence behind his letter as his presented rationale behind his arrest only made unjust laws appear more asinine and questionable by relation. Martin Luther King then goes on to make an analogy to the Bible, portraying Apostle Paul’s proliferation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in parallel to his own efforts, stating, “I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown” (1). These encompass his exigence, at its most simple and precise, and validify the importance behind transforming the country in a positive way.

The rhetorical choices referenced above are riddled with pathos, also known as language utilized to persuade the audience emotionally. Not only does he use pathos to humanize himself, but he also uses it to humanize his immediate audience, the eight clergymen. He opens with an explanation to his response, stating, “Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas…But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms”(King 1). By addressing his respect for the clergymen, feigned or not, he is acknowledging the effectiveness of respect to those in power, whether they may or may not deserve it. King’s decision to compare his efforts to those of biblical figures with shared intent was a deliberate attempt to find common ground with his initial readers, the eight religious Birmingham clergymen, through the faith of a shared religion. His mention of involvement and leadership within a Christian civil rights organization, strength of religious analogy, and general politeness are effective rhetorical choices used to shape how he is perceived despite his critical response, racial setbacks, and arrest: a relatable man of faith, rationale, and initiative.

Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail is undeniably effective at responding to the rhetorical situation at hand. While there were consistent and impactful efforts made by various groups for equality throughout the civil rights era, the proximity between the public release of the letter, found nation-wide by late 1963, and the passing of the Civil Rights Act in early July 1964 shows the direct impact the letter had on social attitudes following its publicization. The law was written in 1962, but the powerful response pushed the courts to finalize their decision. This period of quiet speculation over the law illuminates the national divide in opinion over the matter, one which King helped persuade positively. To summarize, Martin Luther King’s rhetoric is effective and ultimately changed the course of the Civil Rights movement for the better.

Works Cited

Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric , vol. 1, no. 1, Penn State University Press, 1968, pp. 1–14, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40236733 .

Glenn Eskew, “Bombingham: Black Protest in Postwar Birmingham, Alabama”, 1997

Jr., Martin Luther King. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’.” The Atlantic , Atlantic Media Company, 29 Jan. 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/552461/.

“‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’” The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute , 29 May 2019, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/letter-birmingham-jail.

How Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter From Birmingham City Jail’ Inspired the World

“There are two types of laws, just and unjust,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from jail on Easter weekend, 1963. “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” St. Thomas Aquinas would not have disagreed. The image burnished into national memory is the Dr. King of “ I Have a Dream ,” delivered more than 50 years ago in Washington, D.C. So it’s hard to conjure up the 34-year-old in a narrow cell in Birmingham City Jail, hunkered down alone at sunset, using the margins of newspapers and the backs of legal papers to articulate the philosophical foundation of the Civil Rights Movement.

“ Letter From Birmingham City Jail ,” now considered a classic of world literature, was crafted as a response to eight local white clergymen who had denounced Dr. King’s nonviolent protest in the Birmingham News , demanding an end to the demonstrations for desegregation of lunch counters, restrooms and stores. Dr. King’s letter had to be smuggled out of the jail in installments by his attorneys, arriving thought by thought at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s makeshift nerve center at the Gaston Motel. An intensely disciplined Christian, Dr. King was able to mold a modern manifesto of nonviolent resistance out of the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi.

Throughout the 1960s the very word “Birmingham” conjured up haunting images of church bombings and the brutality of Eugene “Bull” Connor’s police, snarling dogs and high-powered fire hoses. When King spent his nine days in the Birmingham jail, it was one of the most rigidly segregated cities in the South, although African Americans made up 40 percent of the population. As Harrison Salisbury wrote in The New York Times , “the streets, the water supply, and the sewer system” were the only public facilities shared by both races. Yet by the time Dr. King was murdered in Memphis five years later, his philosophy had triumphed and Jim Crow laws had been smashed. “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” would eventually be translated into more than 40 languages.

Thanks to Dr. King’s letter, “Birmingham” had become a clarion call for action by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, especially in the 1980s, when the international outcry to free Nelson Mandela reached its zenith. Archbishop Desmond Tutu quoted the letter in his sermons, Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley kept the text with him for good luck, and Ghana’s Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah’s children chanted from it as though Dr. King’s text were a holy writ. During the Cold War, Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77, Poland’s Solidarity and East Germany’s Pastors’ Movement all had “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” translated and disseminated to the masses via the underground.

Just as Dr. King had been inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience,” written in a Massachusetts jail to protest the Mexican-American War, a new generation of the globally oppressed embraced the letter as a source of courage and inspiration. Segregation and apartheid were supported by clearly unjust laws—because they distorted the soul and damaged the psyche. Dr. King’s remedy: nonviolent direct action, the only spiritually valid way to bring gross injustice to the surface, where it could be seen and dealt with.

In Jerusalem in 1983, Mubarak Awad, an American-educated clinical psychologist, translated the letter for Palestinians to use in their workshops to teach students about nonviolent struggle. When a Chinese student stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, unflinching in his democratic convictions, he was symbolically acting upon the teachings of Dr. King as elucidated in his fearless Birmingham letter.

Argentinian human rights activist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was inspired in part by King’s letter to create Servicio Paz y Justicia, a Latin American organization that documented the tragedy of the desaparecidos. Today one would be hard-pressed to find an African novelist or poet, including Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, who had not been spurred to denounce authoritarianism by King’s notion that it was morally essential to become a bold protagonist for justice. Even conservative Republican William J. Bennett included “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” in his Book of Virtues .

The universal appeal of Dr. King’s letter lies in the hope it provides the disinherited of the earth, the millions of voiceless poor who populate the planet from the garbage dumps of Calcutta to the AIDS villages of Haiti. His letter describes the “shameful humiliation” and “inexpressible cruelties” of American slavery, and just as Dr. King was forced to reduce his sacred thoughts to the profane words of the newspaper in order to triumph over injustice, African Americans would win their freedom someday because “the sacred heritage of our nations and eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.”

The National Park Service has designated Sweet Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, where Dr. King lived and is buried, a historic district. Banks, businesses and government offices are closed to honor the civil rights martyr every January. But the living tribute to Dr. King, the one that would have delighted him most, is the impact that his “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” has had on three generations of international freedom fighters.

These pages of poetry and justice now stand as one of the supreme 20th-century instruction manuals of self-help on how Davids can stand up to Goliaths without spilling blood. As an eternal statement that resonates hope in the valleys of despair, “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” is unrivaled, an American document as distinctive as the Declaration of Independence or the Emancipation Proclamation .

This article was written by Douglas Brinkley and originally published in August 2003 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to American History magazine today!

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An Annotated Guide to Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

More by justin.

On April 12, 1963—Good Friday—a 428-word open letter appeared in the Birmingham, Alabama, newspaper calling for unity and protesting the recent Civil Rights demonstrations in Birmingham.

We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued “ an appeal for law and order and common sense ,” in dealing with racial problems in Alabama. We expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters could properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those courts should in the meantime be peacefully obeyed.

Since that time there had been some evidence of increased forbearance and a willingness to face facts. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on various problems which cause racial friction and unrest. In Birmingham, recent public events have given indication that we all have opportunity for a new constructive and realistic approach to racial problems .

However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.

We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for honest and open negotiation of racial issues in our area. And we believe this kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experience of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its accomplishment.

Just as we formerly pointed out that “hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions,” we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.

We commend the community as a whole, and the local news media and law enforcement officials in particular, on the calm manner in which these demonstrations have been handled. We urge the public to continue to show restraint should the demonstrations continue, and the law enforcement officials to remain calm and continue to protect our city from violence.

We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense .

There were eight signees: Two Episcopalians and two Methodists, along with a Roman Catholic, a Jew, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist. Three of them were in their forties; three in their fifties; one in his sixties; and one who was seventy. All were white.

Bishop C.C.J. Carpenter, D.D., LL.D., Episcopalian Bishop of Alabama
Bishop Joseph A. Durick, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Mobile, Birmingham
Rabbi Milton L. Grafman, Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, Alabama
Bishop Paul Hardin, Methodist Bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference
Bishop Nolan B. Harmon, Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church
Rev. George M. Murray, D.D., LL.D, Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama
Rev. Edward V. Ramage, Moderator, Synod of the Alabama Presbyterian Church in the United States
Rev. Earl Stallings, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama

These eight clergy members who signed the letter were not segregationists but moderates who preferred for the issue to be handled at the local level, rather than by outsiders (like Martin Luther King Jr.).

They urged the use of negotiations and the legal system rather than public protests. They call for peace, not violence. They advocated the rule of law and common sense. And they questioned both the wisdom and the timing of these actions. (For example, King and the other protesters had marched the day after Bull Connor lost a run-off election for mayor, and many wondered why they seemed to be inciting a conflict rather than waiting to seeing the policies of the new administration.)

King had been arrested the same day the letter appeared (April 12, 1963), after violating Circuit Judge W. A. Jenkins’s injunction against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing. Ralph Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth were among the marchers also arrested.

When King read the letter from a small prison cell at the Birmingham Jail, he began composing notes of a response in the margins of the newspaper. His reply was eventually composed and stitched together to form what is now known as the 6,921-word “ Letter from Birmingham Jail ,” dated April 16, 1963.

As explored by S. Jonathan Bass, Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the “Letters from Birmingham Jail” ( LSU Press, 2001), some of these clergy labored for racial justice and were stung by King’s public criticism, never able to live it down as they were immortalized as literally a “textbook example” of those on the wrong side of history. (It should be noted that Billy Graham shared their views at the time.)

I have reprinted King’s famous letter in its entirety below, along with some headings that can serve as an outline as you read along. It’s an important and relevant work that speaks powerfully to the need for justice, love, and action, under a natural-law theory that recognizes the divine basis of moral law.

(For a more comprehensive approach than what I’ve provided below, including an outline and historical background in footnotes, see Peter Lillback’s very helpful Annotations on a Letter That Changed the World from a Birmingham Jail .)

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

[King’s circumstances, and the white clergy’s charges that led to this response]

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.”

[Why King does not usually answer criticism]

Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work.

[Why King is making an exception here, and how he hopes to answer it]

But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

[Why King is in Birmingham (he lives in Memphis, 250 miles away)]

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against “outsiders coming in.”

[Organizational reason]

I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates.

Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise.

So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.

[Religious reason]

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

[Communal reason]

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

[The protests are unfortunate, but the causes even more so]

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

[A review of the process of the non-violent protest and the history behind it]

[1. Collection of facts to determine if injustice exists]

There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case.

[2. Negotiation]

On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham’s economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants–for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us.

[3. Self-purification]

We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?”

[4. Direct action]

We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham’s mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene “Bull” Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer.

[Answer to the charge that they should have negotiated instead of engaging in direct action]

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?”

You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

[In defense of creating “tension”]

My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

[Answer to the charge that they didn’t give the new city administration time to act]

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?”

The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act.

We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

Perhaps 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 and even kill your black brothers and sisters;

when you see the vast majority of your twenty 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 your 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 tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people;

when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”;

when you take a cross county 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” and “colored”;

when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”;

when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer 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 the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

[Answer to the charge that they are willing to break the law]

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools , at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws.

[Two types of law: just and unjust]

One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?”

The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

[The difference between just and unjust laws]

Now, what is the difference between the two? 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.

[Example #1]

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.

[Example #2]

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws.

An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal.

By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

[Example #3]

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

[Example #4]

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

[Disobeying an unjust law and bearing the consequences expresses the highest respect for law]

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

[Predecessors to this type of civil disobedience]

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience.

It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar , on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake.

It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.

To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

[Two honest confessions]

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers.

[1. Disappointment with the white moderate]

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

[Answer to the charge that their actions, though peaceful, precipitate violence]

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence.

But is this a logical assertion?

Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?

Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock?

Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?

We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

[Answer to the myth that time will inevitably cure all social ills]

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom.

I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.”

Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

[Answer to the charge that their activity is extreme]

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme.

At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community.

[1. Force of complacency in the Negro community]

One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses.

[2. Force of bitterness and hatred in the Negro community]

The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro’s frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible “devil.”

[3. An alternative, or a more excellent way]

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the “do nothingism” of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood.

And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as “rabble rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies–a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

[Were not these men extremists, too?]

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”

Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.”

And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.”

And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”

And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .”

[The question is: what kind of extremist will one be?]

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.

Will we be extremists for hate or for love?

Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

[Gratitude for those white brothers in the South who have helped]

I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some—such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle—have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as “dirty nigger-lovers.” Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

[2. Disappointment with the white church and its leadership]

Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions.

I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue.

I commend you, Reverend Stallings [one of the signers of “A Call to Unity”], for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis.

I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

[Coming to Birmingham with hope, only to be disappointed]

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.

In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.”

And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”

[Tears of love over the body of Christ]

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

[Remembering a time when the church was powerful]

There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

[Gratitude for those in the church who have helped]

But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour.

[No despair for the future]

But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny.

Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here.

Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here.

For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation—and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

[Concern about the clergy commending the actions of the Birmingham police]

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.”

I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes.

I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail;

if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls;

if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys;

if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together.

I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation.

Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

[Where is the commendation for the peaceful protester?]

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation.

One day the South will recognize its real heroes.

They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer.

They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama [Mother Pollard], who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.”

They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake.

One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

[Reflections on this letter and how it will be received]

Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.

If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

[Hopes for the future]

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Justin Taylor is executive vice president for book publishing and publisher for books at Crossway. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History . You can follow him on Twitter .

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Letter from Birmingham Jail

Letter from Birmingham Jail Summary

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail while he was imprisoned for leading nonviolent civil rights demonstrations in Alabama in 1963. The Letter from Birmingham Jail explains why MLK believed people had a responsibility to follow just laws and a duty to break unjust ones.

PDF: Letter From Birmingham Jail

Letter from Birmingham Jail | Primary Source Essentials

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in Support of Contemporary Social Justice Efforts Essay

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is an iconic document that outlines a strategic blueprint for social justice efforts that is still relevant today. In the Letter, King outlines the importance of nonviolent protest, civil disobedience, and direct action to effect social change. Modern civil rights movements have embraced these principles. Martin Luther King Jr’s letter provides a timeless and invaluable model for contemporary social justice efforts by emphasizing the power of nonviolence, unity, and coalition building to bring about lasting change.

King’s call for nonviolent direct action is perhaps the essential part of his letter, as he explains: “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue” (King, 1963, p. 2). Clayton (2018) cites that in this way, he emphasizes the power of peaceful protests and civil disobedience to bring about change.

King also emphasizes the importance of unity amongst those fighting for justice. He states, “In any nonviolent campaign, there are four basic steps: a collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action” (King, 1963, p. 1). This is echoed in contemporary social justice efforts such as Black Lives Matter, which has worked to bring together a diverse coalition of activists in the fight against systemic racism.

Furthermore, King’s letter serves as a reminder of the importance of coalition building. He writes, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” (King, 1963, p. 1). This idea of collective action is echoed in the many social justice efforts of today, such as the Marches that center the discussion on Roe V Wade, which bring together advocates from all walks of life to fight for reproductive justice, or the LGBTQIA+ community, which works to create safe spaces for those facing discrimination.

In conclusion, Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail remains an important source of guidance for activists today in their fight for justice. Through his focus on nonviolence, unity, and coalition building, King outlines a strategic blueprint for contemporary social justice efforts. His words remind us that lasting change is possible only when we come together and fight for what we believe in and can positively affect our lives.

Clayton, D. M. (2018). Black lives matter and the civil rights movement: A comparative analysis of two social movements in the United States . Journal of Black Studies , 49 (5), 448-480. Web.

King, M. L. (1963). Letter from Birmingham jail . Web.

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Letter From Birmingham Jail

By martin luther king, jr., letter from birmingham jail quotes and analysis.

“My Dear Fellow Clergymen:” Dr. King, p. 169

Dr. King’s tone as he begins his letter is remarkably restrained. Considering the context – he was in solitary confinement when he learned that Birmingham clergymen had together issued a statement criticizing him and praising the city’s bigoted police force – he had every reason to make his letter a rant. And yet this address announces his purpose loud and clear: he aims not to attack but to explain. Rather than indicate what separates him from the other clergy, he calls them “fellow clergymen,” underlining one of the letter’s main themes: brotherhood. Of course, there is no shortage of passive aggressive attacks and criticism throughout the letter, but the tone remains polite, deferential, at times almost apologetic, creating a friendly and ironic tone. This marvelous collection of attributes is present from these very first words.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Dr. King, p. 170

This phrase, one of the letter’s most famous, serves several purposes. In its immediate context, it justifies why Dr. King and the SCLC have come to Birmingham; because they feel connected to and responsible for everyone, they had to come to a place that was exhibiting “injustice.” And yet the phrase also serves as a stipulation to justify many of the more controversial claims he later makes. Throughout the work, he justifies breaking laws if they are unjust, embracing extremism, and forgoing negotiations if they are not made in good faith. Because Dr. King establishes this philosophical groundwork so early on, he has unimpeachable justifications for those later claims. That is, if indeed injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere, then it follows that a man interested in justice must endeavor to stop it, not just for the sake of his immediate community, but for the good of all mankind.

“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” Dr. King, p. 172

Throughout the “Letter,” Dr. King is careful to measure his tone, to avoid validating any knee-jerk anxieties that his audience might feel. And yet he does not carry this restraint to the point of apologizing for encouraging tension. Instead, he embraces and justifies the importance of tension. The allusion to Socrates is important, since Western civilization treats the Greek thinker as an archetype of wisdom. In truth, King is concocting a syllogism – if Socrates is good, and Socrates was right to create tension so that the mind could grow, then tension is good for inspiring mankind to grow. He is careful to stress that the tension he supports is “nonviolent,” but he does not make his intentions unclear. Similarly, the passage slyly integrates the stakes of inaction into its construction. In its final lines, Dr. King implies that proceeding without tension is going to leave man in “the dark depths of prejudice and racism.” It is a passive, implicit warning that addressing segregation without tension would be not only ineffective, but dangerous.

“Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." Dr. King, p. 173

About mid-way through the “Letter,” Dr. King declares his primary antagonist as the white moderate. Though this passage comes earlier than the explicit discussion of the white moderate, it is one of the clearest articulations of the accusation he makes against them. He directly accuses moderates of disingenuousness when they preach patience, in effect calling them liars – they say ‘wait’ but mean ‘never.’ Worse, he suggests that they lie without even realizing it. If they are not pernicious, then they are ignorant of themselves. The larger implication of this assertion is that moderation and patience must be replaced with action and impatience. To delay justice is to be cowardly and unjust. Thus, the clergymen – and the white moderate society that the represent – should not only celebrate Dr. King’s attempt to bring about justice, but join in the crusade.

“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…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.” Dr. King, pp. 174-175

Dr. King has an impressive ability to veer between logos (appeal to logic) and pathos (appeal to emotion), sometimes within the same argument. This excerpt is from his defense against charges of hypocrisy, which argued that he encouraged people to follow the laws that benefit him while breaking laws that do not. His logos throughout this passage clearly dismisses such a charge as simplistic. Taking for granted that his audience accepts the validity of Christian morality, he insists that one should apply this sense of morality towards the world’s complications. And yet even within this logical argument is an implicit use of pathos, as he implicitly asks the question ‘would you really want to support a law that “distorts the soul?”’ Dr. King’s argument empowers the individual to be conscientious of injustice in the world, and to let that be his guide, rather than relying on socially dictated truisms like ‘the law is the law.’

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.” Dr. King, p. 176

Here, Dr. King describes what happens when one relies on a law that exempts itself from moral responsibility. On several occasions in the “Letter,” he chides the clergy for representing a church that is separate from social, ‘real-world’ concerns. His argument here is that allowing a law to reign supreme without assessing its moral quality produces a situation like that of Nazi Germany. His attack here on the clergy – who seem to support ‘law and order’ without considering the repressive segregation that comes with such order – is not very subtle, comparing them to Nazis who persecuted Jews simply because their prejudices were protected by the law. What the passage does is distinguish between conformity and individual responsibility. The latter, he argues, allows for action that can change the world. By suggesting that he would have broken Nazi laws because they were unjust, he challenges his audience to do the same with segregation laws.

“Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” Dr. King, p. 178

This passage is a rather concise description of the call to arms that lies within the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Arguing that time is “neutral,” Dr. King illustrates the importance of individual action. Individuals must actively seek to create the world they want, since there is no inevitable sense of fate that will deliver it. By suggesting that “people of ill will” have understood this idea, he offers an implicit warning to his audience: if you do not support those of us seeking to do good, only bad will happen. It is a marvelous mixture of logos and pathos. He stipulates through pathos that good men want “a solid rock of human dignity,” and then argues that direct action – like that of the SCLC – is the only way to reach such a transcendent state.

“But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Dr. King, p. 179

During the first half of the “Letter,” Dr. King’s arguments are marked more by their restraint than by their fire. Showing a prudent and effective sensitivity to his audience’s fears – that angry black men are extremists who seek to destroy – he frequently takes time to define his terms before admitting to them. An early example is his discussion and defense of “tension.” However, here he shows a much greater eagerness to accept a mantle, regardless of his audience’s response. Of course, this is overstating it somewhat, since he does define and contextualize the concept of ‘extremism’ immediately before this passage, but there is nevertheless a self-satisfaction with his position here. He makes no qualms at implicitly comparing himself with Jesus (and other figures that follow), and uses an unimpeachable sentiment (“love your enemies…”) to justify his ground. He challenges his audience to disagree with the grounds on which he gladly calls himself an extremist and plans to remake the world for justice. The extension is that if their most-hated concept – extremism – is not necessarily bad, then they ought to reexamine their various attitudes and perceptions.

“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.” Dr. King, p. 183

Keeping with the more confrontational tone of the letter’s second half, Dr. King launches into an attack on the complacency of the contemporary church. Preceding this passage, he explains his disappointment, arguing that the church merely validates an unjust status quo, rather than being a force for social change and human betterment, an active part of the struggle for man’s dignity in a cruel world. Here, he presents the stakes of such cowardice: the church will become “irrelevant.” His language is unequivocally harsh, likening the church to a “social club” without “authenticity.” The sense of “outright disgust” is attributed to “young people,” but is arguably Dr. King’s own. Whereas most of the “Letter” operates through sleight of hand logical arguments or naked pathos, this section is unusually harsh and direct, ultimately suggesting that Dr. King is now prepared to admit that while he would like the support of his audience, he and his brothers and sisters will persevere and succeed even without it.

“For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.” Dr. King, pp. 181-182

By the end of “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King has progressed from what professor Jonathan Rieder calls a “Diplomat” to a “Prophet.” This clear declaration of self-sufficiency reflects his ultimate sentiment: while he would like the support of his audience, he and his brothers and sisters will persevere and succeed even without it. He establishes this by referring to the greatest indignity in black American history – slavery – and yet owning that period with optimism, as an indication that the black man will triumph over any adversity. What gives them such exceptional power is that they operate with the protection of both the secular (“the sacred heritage of our nation”) and the divine (“the eternal will of God.”) Echoing his earlier arguments that the law and morality cannot be considered as independent concepts, he insists that he will triumph because he believes in justice, and implicitly warns those who do not join him that they are cowardly, promoting injustice instead. In other words, they should join his cause not only for his sake, but for their own.

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Letter From Birmingham Jail Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Letter From Birmingham Jail is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

what injustices does dr. king describe in the letter from Birmingham jail.

Dr. King provides a moral reason for his presence, saying that he came to Birmingham to battle “injustice.” Because he believes that “all communities and states” are interrelated, he feels compelled to work for justice anywhere that injustice is...

How do allusions that King uses in his letter help the audience relate to him and what he is saying?

King uses allusions to align his arguments with famous thinkers of Western civilization.

John Donne : "New Day in Birmingham" allusion to "No Man is an Island" .

John Bunyan : Puritan writer, imprisoned; "I will stay in jail before I make a butchery...

The timing of the protest continued to change because

D. They did not want to interfere with the mayoral election.

Study Guide for Letter From Birmingham Jail

Letter From Birmingham Jail study guide contains a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Essays for Letter From Birmingham Jail

Letter From Birmingham Jail essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rhetorical Analysis of “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”
How Stoicism Supports Civil Disobedience
We Are in This Together: Comparing "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "Sonny's Blues"
Fighting Inequality with the Past: A Look into "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and Related Historical Documents
A Question of Appeal: Rhetorical Analysis of Malcolm X and MLK

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ENGL001: English Composition I

Letter from a birmingham jail.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" offers clear examples of ethos . For example, by addressing the letter to "my fellow clergymen", Dr. King places himself among a group of leaders. Seeing him as a leader allows the reader to trust his statements. Read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and list the statements that evoke ethos .

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps 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 and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty 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 your 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 tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county 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" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer 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 the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? 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.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle--have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.

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A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King's 'Letter from Birmingham
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' is Martin Luther King's most famous written text, and rivals his most celebrated speech, 'I Have a Dream', for its political importance and rhetorical power. King wrote this open letter in April 1963 while he was imprisoned in the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama.
Letter from Birmingham Jail Summary & Analysis
This is the beginning of King's point-by-point rebuttal of the criticisms leveled against him. King responds with complete confidence that he is in the right place at the right time, and that his actions are necessary. Active Themes. In addition, King is also in Birmingham because he feels compelled to respond to injustice wherever he finds it.
"Letter from Birmingham Jail"
April 16, 1963. As the events of the Birmingham Campaign intensified on the city's streets, Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in Birmingham in response to local religious leaders' criticisms of the campaign: "Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious ...
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (article)
Google Classroom. Full text of "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. 16 April 1963. My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas.
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B. The response earn ed 2 evidence points for the description of "Letter from Birmingham Jail," which is relevant to the prompt (1 point) and supports the thesis (1 point). "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is also a given foundational document, but 2 points was the most that could be earned for one piece of evidence.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Letter from Birmingham Jail: Thesis. The thesis of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham is that sometimes civil disobedience is an appropriate response to injustice.
Teaching 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' in High School
The open letter by Martin Luther King Jr. is an excellent resource for teaching persuasive writing and much more. If I could teach only one text, it would be Martin Luther King Jr.'s " Letter from Birmingham Jail " (LBJ). What first draws students is the author. Most have heard excerpts from "I Have a Dream," but few of them know that ...
Letter from Birmingham Jail Study Guide
A Letter in Pieces. While in the Birmingham City jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. had little access to the outside world, and was only able to read "A Call to Unity" when a trusted friend smuggled the newspaper into his jail cell. King wrote his response in the margins of the paper, in pieces, and they were smuggled back out to a fellow pastor ...
How does King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" remain important
A thesis about the importance, power, and continued relevance of King's Letter from Birmingham Jail could involve the letter's overall theme, or it could focus on one of the key issues he raises.
Rhetorical Analysis of The Letter from Birmingham Jail
Rhetorical Appeals in the Letter from Birmingham Jail. In his renowned "Letter from Birmingham Jail" penned in 1963, the author, Martin Luther King Jr., employs extended allusions to various philosophers, including Aquinas and Socrates, which might imply an affinity with them. However, the clarity of his arguments and his unwavering commitment ...
The Rhetorical Situation of Letter from Birmingham Jail
In Letter From Birmingham Jail, the exigence is the continued condemnation, segregation, and prejudice afflicted against African Americans since the emancipation of the slaves in 1863. However, the racial divide was legislated in 1877 with the implementation of Jim Crow laws, which lasted until 1950. ... Despite his support, Martin Luther's ...
How Martin Luther King's 'Letter From Birmingham City Jail' Inspired
Resonating hope in the valleys of despair, King's 'Letter From Birmingham City Jail' became a literary classic inspiring activists around the world. "There are two types of laws, just and unjust," wrote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from jail on Easter weekend, 1963. "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.".
An Annotated Guide to Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail
Replica of Dr. King's Birmingham jail cell at the National Civil Rights Museum. On April 12, 1963—Good Friday—a 428-word open letter appeared in the Birmingham, Alabama, newspaper calling for unity and protesting the recent Civil Rights demonstrations in Birmingham. We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued " an ...
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail while he was imprisoned for leading nonviolent civil rights demonstrations in Alabama in 1963. The Letter from Birmingham Jail explains why MLK believed people had a responsibility to follow just laws and a duty to break unjust ones. PDF: Letter From Birmingham Jail.
PDF Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) [Abridged]
Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) [Abridged] April 16, 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen, While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas …
Identifying Thesis Statements: Letter from Birmingham Jail
I describe what a thesis statement is, where to find a thesis in a text, and how to identify a thesis that's not explicitly stated.
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in Support of Contemporary Social
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is an iconic document that outlines a strategic blueprint for social justice efforts that is still relevant today. In the Letter, King outlines the importance of nonviolent protest, civil disobedience, and direct action to effect social change.
What claims does Martin Luther King make in his "Letter From Birmingham
The letter, written on April 16, 1963, is addressed to Martin Luther King's fellow clergymen and tries to explain his presence in Birmingham while also addressing various criticisms made by ...
Letter From Birmingham Jail Quotes and Analysis
Dr. King, p. 178. This passage is a rather concise description of the call to arms that lies within the "Letter from Birmingham Jail.". Arguing that time is "neutral," Dr. King illustrates the importance of individual action. Individuals must actively seek to create the world they want, since there is no inevitable sense of fate that ...
Letter from Birmingham Jail RA Essay Prompt
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer's rhetorical choices. • Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning. ... "Letter from Birmingham Jail" Rhetorical Analysis Essay Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was one of the most influential leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. ...
ENGL001: Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" offers clear examples of ethos. For example, by addressing the letter to "my fellow clergymen", Dr. King places himself among a group of leaders. Seeing him as a leader allows the reader to trust his statements. Read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and ...
Letter from Birmingham Jail Flashcards
Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation.

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