Letter From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts) by Martin Luther King, Jr.

In April 1963, jailed for marching without a permit in Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King penned this open letter to clergymen of Birmingham who had urged him to go slow. The conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court (the law must be obeyed) but the letter was a turning point in the civil rights movement. Four months later the famous I Have a Dream speech was delivered.

The open letter begins:

My Dear Fellow Clergymen,

While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas … But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some 85 affiliate organizations all across the South … Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation; 3) self-purification; and 4) direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham … Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Letter From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts) by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

While everyone now nods reverentially, Rick Perlstein reminds us  that it was not always so.  Barry Goldwater sparked the new conservative movement when he voted against the civil rights act of 1964 (something Ron and Rand Paul defend still); William Buckley, Ronald Reagan and others denounced King for lawlessness.
In fact, though he is saint now - white people didn't like him much back in the day, as John Sides points out at The Monkey Cage.

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