Why did Martin Luther King, Jr. write this letter?
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Transcribed Image Text:Why did Martin Luther King, Jr. write this letter?
Transcribed Image Text:O Letter from a Birmingham Jail
By 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. had become one of the most prominent leaders of the civil rights
movement, and he continued to espouse nonviolent civil disobedience as a way of registering African
American resistance against unfair, discriminatory, and racist laws and behaviors. While the campaign
in Birmingham began with an African American boycott of white businesses to end discrimination in
employment practices and public segregation, it became a fight over free speech when King was arrested
for violating a local injunction against demonstrations. King wrote his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in
response to an op-ed by eight white Alabama clergymen who complained about the SCLC's fiery tactics
and argued that social change needed to be pursued gradually. The letter criticizes those who did not
support the cause of civil rights:
In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the
white religious leadership in the community would see the justice of our cause and, with
deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to
the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have
been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their
worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed
to hear white ministers say follow this decree because integration is morally right and the
Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have
watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely 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 so many ministers say, "Those are social issues with which
the Gospel has no real concern," and I have watched so many churches commit themselves
to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and
soul, the sacred and the secular.
Since its publication, the "Letter" has become one of the most cogent, impassioned, and succinct
statements of the aspirations of the civil rights movement and the frustration over the glacial pace of
progress in achieving justice and equality for all Americans.
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