![]() ![]() died on Apas a martyr for the civil rights cause to which he had pledged his life. Sourced from Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC About Martin Luther King, Jr. He was also a great student of and believer in the founding principles of America. King a gifted thinker, he was an exceptional theologian and historian. In closing, he hoped to meet the eight fellow clergymen who authored the first letter.In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, Providence Forum reprinted the letter with biblical and historical annotations which highlight the fact that not only was Dr. 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. ![]() 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). 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. 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). “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’” (King, Why, 83). “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’” King wrote. 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”). He went on to explain that the purpose of direct action was to create a crisis situation out of which negotiation could emerge. 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). 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. ![]() In Why We Can’t Wait, King recalled in an author’s note accompanying the letter’s republication how the letter was written. 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.” ![]() 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. 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”).įollowing 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. 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. 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. 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). I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. 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. ![]()
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