Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letter From a Birmingham Jail' and Its Enduring Legacy

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his seminal 'Letter From a Birmingham Jail' on April 16, 1963, while imprisoned for defying a court injunction against protests. The letter was a response to eight white clergymen who criticized his nonviolent demonstrations as 'unwise and untimely.' King drafted the letter on scraps of paper, smuggled it out via an aide, and it was later distributed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The letter argues for direct action over moderation, famously stating 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' It was first published in a Quaker periodical and later in The Century magazine. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, by James Earl Ray. In 2011, Christian Churches Together in the USA issued a response to King's letter. On the 50th anniversary in 2014, a historical marker was dedicated outside the Birmingham Jail, and history professor Jonathan Bass called it 'the most important written document of the Civil Rights Era.' The letter remains a key primary source for scholars and is inscribed on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC, which opened in August 2011.