Letter from Birmingham Jail facts for kids
The "Letter from Birmingham Jail", also known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and "The Negro Is Your Brother", is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. It says that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts. Responding to being referred to as an "outsider", King writes: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
The letter, written in response to "A Call for Unity" during the 1963 Birmingham campaign, was widely published, and became an important text for the civil rights movement in the United States. The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern political prisoner", and is considered a classic document of civil disobedience.
Background
Birmingham, Alabama was known for its intense segregation and attempts to combat said racism during this time period. The citizens of Birmingham's efforts in desegregation caught King's attention. Their desire to be active in fighting against racism is what made King certain that this is where he should begin his work.
King met with President John F. Kennedy on October 16, 1963, to address the concerns of discrimination in the south and the lack of action the government is taking. President Kennedy seemed to be in support of desegregation, however, was slow to take action. King, passionate for this change, created "Project C", meaning confrontation.
The nonviolent Birmingham campaign began on April 3, 1963, with coordinated marches and sit-ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. On April 10, Circuit Judge W. A. Jenkins Jr. issued a blanket injunction against "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing." Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling. On April 12, King was arrested and taken to the Birmingham jail.
An ally smuggled in a newspaper from April 12, which contained "A Call for Unity", a statement by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods. The letter provoked King, and he began to write a response to the newspaper itself. Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, arranged $160,000 to bail out King and the other jailed protestors.
Publication
King wrote the first part of the letter on the margins of a newspaper, which was the only paper available to him. He then wrote more on bits and pieces of paper given to him by a trusty, which were given to his lawyers to take back to movement headquarters. Pastor Wyatt Tee Walker and his secretary Willie Pearl Mackey then began compiling and editing the literary jigsaw puzzle. He was eventually able to finish the letter on a pad of paper his lawyers were allowed to leave with him.
An editor at The New York Times Magazine, Harvey Shapiro, asked King to write his letter for publication in the magazine, but the Times chose not to publish it. Extensive excerpts from the letter were published, without King's consent, on May 19, 1963, in the New York Post Sunday Magazine. The complete letter was first published as "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" by the American Friends Service Committee in May 1963 and subsequently in the June 1963 issue of Liberation, the June 12, 1963, edition of The Christian Century, and the June 24, 1963, edition of The New Leader. The letter gained more popularity as summer went on, and was reprinted in the July 1963 edition of The Progressive under the headline "Tears of Love" and the August 1963 edition of The Atlantic Monthly under the headline "The Negro Is Your Brother". King included a version of the full text in his 1964 book Why We Can't Wait.
The letter was reprinted around 50 times in 325 editions of 58 readers. These readers were published for college-level composition courses between 1964 and 1968.
U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-Alabama) led an annual bipartisan reading of the letter in the U.S. Senate during his tenure in the United States Senate in 2019 and 2020, and passed the obligation to lead the reading to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) upon Jones' election defeat.
See also
In Spanish: Carta desde la cárcel de Birmingham para niños
