Letter from Birmingham Jail

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Letter from Birmingham Jail or Letter from Birmingham City Jail, was an open letter written on April 16, 1963 by Martin Luther King, Jr., an American civil rights leader. King wrote the letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama, after a peaceful protest against segregation. The letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963 titled "A Call For Unity" which agreed that social injustices were taking place but expressed the belief that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts and not taken onto the streets. King responded that, without forceful, direct actions such as his, true civil rights could never be achieved. As he put it, "This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'" He asserted not only that civil disobedience is justified in the face of unjust laws, but also that "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

The letter was first published as "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in the June 12, 1963 edition of The Christian Century.[1]

The letter includes the frequently-quoted lines that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," as well as the words of Thurgood Marshall quoted by King that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."


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