LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM JAIL
For Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, we hosted a talk on the Letter from the Birmingham Jail.
Chalton Askew and Ernest Ward led the discussion.
The event was held at Pretty Good Books, LaGrange, Georgia.

Sunday, January 15, 2023 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in longhand a letter to the clergy that he had been meeting with. It was his response to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South. 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. 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 The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern political prisoner and is considered a classic document of civil disobedience.