be taking giant steps forward away from the racist
and segregationist past promoted and maintained
by former governor George Wallace. The promi-
nent evangelist Bill Graham encouraged King to
patiently wait, “to put the brakes on” (Miller, 150).
Indirectly identifying King and his support-
ers as outsiders, ignorant of Alabama’s true in-
ternal affairs and new promise of progress, eight
local fellow clergymen, convinced that the courts,
not demonstrations, were the appropriate venues
through which to effect change, made their convic-
tions known; and the Birmingham News published
their views and sentiments in a 13-paragraph ar-
ticle titled “White Clergymen Urge Local Negroes
to Withdraw from Demonstrations,” on April 13,
- The men challenged King, rebuking the Bir-
mingham demonstration as “unwise and untimely”
(Miller, 150). Perhaps more important, “the cler-
gymen invoked their religious authority against
civil disobedience,” the very heartbeat of King’s
strategy, concluding, “We do not believe that these
days of new hope are days when extreme measures
are justified in Birmingham” (Branch, 738)
Angered by this rebuke, King, who did not
make a habit of addressing his critics, responded
by writing an open letter, “Letter from a Birming-
ham Jail,” from his prison cell on April 16, 1963,
literally in the margins of the Birmingham News,
on scraps of paper and on paper borrowed from
his assistant, Clarence Jones, who then smuggled it
out of the jail. Later published in King’s collection
of essays Why We Can’t Wait (1963), “Letter from
a Birmingham Jail” represents his most effective
and convincing argument on the importance and
moral justification of his nonviolent civil disobe-
dience program and pronouncements during the
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT of the 1960s. In it King
argues from the fundamental premise that “injus-
tice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere”
(King, 85), making “Letter from a Birmingham
Jail,” in the end, perhaps the finest apologetic for
the modern Civil Rights movement.
Addressing his response to “My Dear Fellow
Clergymen,” King debunked their argument of the
poor timing of his Birmingham demonstrations,
arguing, “we must use time creatively, and forever
realize that the time is always ripe to do right”
(King, 88). In fact, he noted that blacks, who had
been waiting more than 300 years for the changes
he was working to effect, had “many pent-up re-
sentments and latent frustration.... So let [them]
march sometime, let [them] have [their] prayer
pilgrimages.” Time is critical, King concluded, if
gains toward freedom were to be made. Blacks
had learned that “wait” has almost always meant
“never” (88).
Responding to his critics’ denouncement of him
as an “outside agitator,” King responded that when
it came to nonviolent civil disobedience and direct
action, all are invited members of the community
who, in their desire to be accountable, must re-
spond to injustice. Dr. King sought to teach his fel-
low clergymen, asking, “How does one determine
when a law is just or unjust /... To put it in the
terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a
human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural
law” (King, 89). And he implored, “All segregation
statutes are unjust because segregation distorts
the soul and damages the personality.” (King, 89).
Consequently, the clergy, King concluded, had
the responsibility to not hide behind traditional
church polity but instead to pursue the fulfillment
of God’s law of love. King insisted that organized
religion must leave the comforts of congregational
facilities to walk the streets as a partner in the non-
violent struggle for freedom. He reminded them
of the four basic steps of a nonviolent campaign:
(1) collection of the facts, (2) negotiation, (3) self-
purification, and (4) direct action (King, 85). He
then informs them, “We have gone through all of
these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gain-
saying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this
community” (85).
King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” had “an
instant and astonishing response; it was published
in full in Liberation and The Christian Century as
well as in Gandhi Marg.... At least two separate
editions had been published in pamphlet form for
the FOR, the American Friends Service Commit-
tee, and the American Baptist Convention” (Miller,
180). “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” appeals to
young and old, rich and poor, black and white, by
citing authorities such as Reinhold Niebuhr and
Saint Augustine, by telling stories, with sensitive314 “Letter from Birmingham Jail”