Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963). Detailed description

An open letter written in response to criticisms leveled by eight white clergymen, King published this piece in a Birmingham newspaper to defend his calls for civil disobedience. When he composed the letter, Sheriff Eugene “Bull” Connor had arrested him for protesting segregation in the city. When King wrote this essay, most of the South as well as most of America remained unconvinced that Jim Crow-style segregation should be ended. Even President John F. Kennedy, a northern liberal, had not emphatically moved to support the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision nationwide, opting only to act in jurisdictions facing emergencies as protesters were openly attacked and arrested by officials refusing to desegregate. In Birmingham, King sought to create another such circumstance.

Even many African Americans were not convinced that King was correct to advocate such fundamental changes in race relations: Participating in street protests was dangerous and could result in retaliation from the white community. Being “blacklisted” could mean unemployment, foreclosure, eviction, or worse. Many who lived in the South personally knew of individuals who had been subjected to the “justice” of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization infamous for burning and bombing homes, flogging protest instigators, or even lynching participants.

Another reason why many African Americans resisted King’s plan for ending segregation was rooted in history: Fifty years earlier Booker T. Washington had taught the principles of “accommodationism,” arguing that African Americans should not prioritize the attainment of equal political or social status with that of whites. Instead, African Americans should focus on proving themselves as valuable assets to their regions. In their doing so, whites would gladly accept blacks as members of the community. According to this philosophy, forcing integration on whites through the law or through social action would only retard progress that would otherwise occur if blacks would just work hard and be patient.

Even in Washington’s day, the majority of southern whites agreed with accommodation- ism: If blacks could “know their place,” then the southern way of life could continue. Believers in accommodationism saw King as an outside agitator, suspecting him of being influenced by communist agents. In the paranoid and suspicious climate of cold war America, a climate that had given rise to numerous communist witch hunts, such charges were taken seriously.

In addition to these concerns, some of King’s fellow clergymen had denounced him: Numerous ministers, bishops, and a rabbi signed an open letter stating that he had overstepped his place. According to these men, to be involved with acts that precipitated violence and to make radical demands that bypassed the courts and legislatures were not the roles of a Christian pastor. They held that the tenets of accommodationism agreed with the principles of gradual social reform held by many whites. Gradualists felt that, given sufficient time, race relations would improve and that this slow evolutionary process could not be forced.

Sheriff “Bull” Connor enforced such beliefs, ordering his police officers to confront protesters with billy clubs and vicious dogs. The Birmingham Fire Department joined in, using their high-pressure fire hoses to wash the streets clean of protesters. The world and the U.S. citizenry watched in horror as pictures aired every evening on the national and international news. Even with his own community divided, King persisted. At the nadir of the confrontation, just as most of his followers were being arrested, and the tide of local opinion seemed to be against him, King abruptly joined the marchers and was arrested. King was arrested 29 times throughout his career. Each time, especially in Alabama under sheriffs like “Bull” Connor, it was feared he would meet with a fatal accident. Despite these dangers, King was determined to persuade others to join the protests.

The rhetoric used in this essay is often cited as an exemplar of persuasive writing and the powerful effect it can have. King recognized that he had several audiences and used logic and evidence to reach each one, targeting clergymen, African Americans in Birmingham, white moderate sympathizers, and the global community. A Christian minister first and a trained theologian, King followed the Bible’s precepts, applying them to his life and using them as the basis for his actions. Accordingly, he opened his response by criticizing his fellow men of the cloth with references to biblical settings, asking them to contemplate what would have happened if Jesus Christ had accepted the Greco-Roman world’s status quo. What would have happened if Jesus Christ had seen himself as an outsider to the concerns of those who did not live in Nazareth? What meaning, King asks, would the gospel have if Jesus had been restricted to his hometown? King applies such logic to his presence in Birmingham, stressing the interrelatedness of all communities. For King, to be idle while people are treated badly is immoral: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Throughout his letter, King cites evidence of the use of overwhelming force as well as subversion of the law and Constitutional guarantees to support his logic. Chief among the evidence he cites is the use of violence against the black community repeatedly throughout history, referring to examples from 340 years of race relations. The legacy of this history of violence, slavery, and forced segregation has resulted in despair, humiliation, and fear. And it was being used again against peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham. Rather than complimenting law enforcement officers for maintaining order, King maintained, critics should, instead, witness their brutality against children and the elderly. He thoroughly describes the abusive and intolerable nature of the institution of segregation along with those enforcing it. King wanted to leave his readers with no middle ground to retreat to: Put simply, King implied that either you oppose segregation and support others who oppose it, or you tolerate it and thereby support the segregationists and their evils.

King tempered his call for immediate mass action, making it clear that significant danger faced those who opposed the status quo. A commitment to the Civil Rights movement required that participants have full knowledge of the significance their subsequent actions may have. Civil disobedience required individuals to accept consequences, a fact that made the title of King’s letter so pointed. King wrote from a Birmingham jail knowing that he was at his jailers’ mercy. This strengthened King’s position in the eyes of his audience, who knew that he was personally willing to pay the price for freedom.

Another salient point that should be noted in reading “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is King’s extended criticism of white moderates. For a man in King’s position, it was easy to respond to the unjust actions and policies of segregationists. Responding to his community’s hesitation, as they weighed the dangers of joining the protests, was more difficult.

But it was much more difficult simultaneously to criticize and to appeal to those who occupied the middle ground, black and white citizens who were unwilling to take action and yet vital to the success of the Civil Rights movement. The middle ground is often seen as the place most in need of positive influence by exerting moral pressure on it. King did just that.

He spent a significant portion of the essay calling out whites who saw themselves as generally supportive of desegregation but against immediate action. He attacked whites who favored arguments in favor of gradualism for their willingness to accept conditions for blacks that they would never tolerate for themselves. King demands in his letter that these people explain what constitutes “well timed” social change: When, according to their evolutionary time frame, can blacks be considered fully human? How much patience can the impoverished have when they are surrounded by affluence? As King succinctly observes: “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Citing Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, and Jesus Christ as historical examples of “extremists” who took active measures during difficult times to effect lasting, positive social change, King insisted enacting change meant confronting injustice.

King was also harsh in his assessment of the institutions white moderates supported, claiming that the churches, synagogues, city offices, and law enforcement agencies they depended on did not deserve their trust and support. By indicting these institutions, King challenged more than white moderate complacency. For King, laws are not worthy of obedience if they perpetuate injustice. Such laws, according to King, are evil. This evil, King insists, must be confronted. Again, King left no middle ground for readers.

King was also very much aware of the international audience witnessing the disruptions in Birmingham: Foreign journalists from news agencies around the world reported on the events in Alabama. The government of the Soviet Union said that such discriminatory treatment revealed the hypocrisy of America’s foreign policy stance, which purportedly championed freedom and democracy around the world. Throughout Europe, the events in Birmingham were perceived as symptoms of an archaic and unjust social hierarchy that should have been dismantled long ago. In Johannesburg, South Africa, nationalist groups to oppose apartheid in South Africa adopted the nonviolent approach of the Civil Rights movement. King’s letter and the Birmingham protests that it was born of became international topics of discussion.

Many of these dialogues concerned whether the United States—a nation that allowed systematic violations of civil rights—could claim to be a moral force in the international community. For many around the world, King’s writings and actions in Birmingham confirmed the stereotypes they had of southerners’ being bigoted and ignorant. Conversely, there were brutal responses to King’s work and his message in South Africa, where South African police shot and killed nonviolent demonstrators inspired by King.

For Discussion or Writing
1. Contrast King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” with Malcolm X’s “The Afro-American’s Right to Self Defense” speech. In these seminal works, both thinkers explain and justify their methods of furthering civil rights. After reading both, write a well-developed essay that considers which argument is the stronger and why. Whose rhetoric is more persuasive? Whose ideas are more applicable today?

2. King encouraged elementary and high school students to join the demonstrators. If you were a teacher, what would you have said to parents? What would you have said to the administrators for whom you worked?

3. Birmingham’s response during the demonstrations damaged U.S. national interests abroad. Was this sufficient cause for federal intervention? What other reasons might have been used to allow the president to intervene in Birmingham?

4. Are there conditions today that call for civil disobedience? If so, argue persuasively for it.