Letter from Birmingham Jail
The Letter from Birmingham Jail composed by Martin Luther King, Jr from his cell in the Birmingham City Jail and dated April 16, 1963, was a seminal document that established the moral foundations for the non-violent civil rights demonstrations of the Birmingham campaign that began in 1963.
Circumstances
King was arrested along with Ralph Abernathy on Good Friday, April 12, 1963 by Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor for parading without a permit at the outset of the Birmingham campaign. He spent eleven days in jail. The idea of composing a letter in jail was suggested to King by New York Times Magazine editor Harvey Shapiro.
King's letter was written as a direct response to A Call For Unity, an open letter signed by 8 white clergymen of Birmingham published in the Birmingham News on the day of his arrest. The "Call For Unity" was critical of the protests and incendiary actions organized in Birmingham by "outsiders" and called for forbearance and respect for the law as the courts gradually eroded the worst injustices of segregation.
Content
Publication
Though Shapiro had suggested the letter, it was not published in the Times. It appeared a few months later as "Letter from Birmingham City Jail", the cover article for the June 24, 1963 issue of the The New Leader, and was reprinted shortly thereafter in The Atlantic Monthly.