Letter from Birmingham Jail

If you read one thing today on Martin Luther King Day, make it his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
On April 12, 1963, eight white Birmingham clergymen published an open letter as “A Call for Unity.” They urged “calm” and spoke against “extreme,” “unwise” measures, encouraging the Negro community to settle the issue in the courts, not the streets. They also argued that this was a local matter, urging “outsiders” (like King) to stay out of it.
On the same day that this letter was being published—Good Friday of 1963—King and 50 Birmingham residents were arrested for disobeying Bull Connor’s injunction against the protest. Four days later (April 16, 1963), King began composing the letter in bits and pieces, and it was passed along piecemeal to his associates to stitch together.
It’s a moving letter, not only for its rhetoric but also for its natural-law argument rooted in the Christian tradition. King was a man of moral failing and neo-orthodox theology but in certain areas a man of tremendous moral courage. Let us celebrate what he said right, and said so well.
In the video below you can watch actor Cory Jones recite the contents of the letter:

And here is the text: Continue