“Letter From A Birmingham Jail” - as powerful today as it was 59 years ago: My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
Thank you TC. I had never read his letter and am amazed at this peek into his mind and heart. So hoping that we can see the voting bills passed soon to help finish his dream, and for millions of others also.
I was living in Atlanta during that time, I had been educated by Jesuits in Oregon and only knew about the Deep South from lessons in HS. In the summer of ‘64 we moved here. I had been raised in Detroit, Denver, Seattle, and Portland, those places were each unique but moving here was like moving to another country, I couldn’t wait to get back to Oregon. Family has brought me back here and although I have worked all over the country I have spent more time in Atlanta than anywhere else. This is the first time I have read Dr. King’s letter, I found it deeply moving, thank you TC for making it available, I will pass it on. The man spoke with a rare elegance and everything he said was based on truth just like the Jesuits had taught me, the wisdom of his efforts was based on the solidity of the truth, it didn’t make what he wanted to accomplish easy but it did provide comfort in knowing that he was right. I hope Dr. Warnock reads it in it’s entirety when he speaks in the Senate tomorrow, he’s my Senator and I couldn’t be more proud of him. It needs to be put in the national record, I can’t think of a better man to do it.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter written 59 years ago, while jailed in Birmingham for leading black protestors, provides us with lessons for today -- to engage and mobilize the American people in combating the Republican Party’s attacks on our election system. Changes made by Republican state legislatures, in the main, reduced access to voting primarily of minorities and young voters and greater control over the administration of elections to enable the manipulation of election results. These bills illustrate MLK’s assertion,
‘…the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust.’ ‘I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws,’… ‘Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.
Organizing locally is crucial now as the rights of white residents are favored over Black and Brown residents. Injustice his happening in your backyard.
‘Between January 1 and December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting. More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.’ (BrennanCenter)
These restrictive voting bills are a non-too subtle form of segregation, The election laws being passed by Republican state legislatures are ‘unjust’ they are ‘no law at all’. Residents of the states’ passing such laws can understand the immorality of the bills. Residents of those states will not be alone when confronting their legislators. It is our responsibility as citizens to go where injustice is being committed.
‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’ rings forth from MLK’s LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL ’Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly’. Martin Luther King, Jr. exposes what is happening before us in ways that touch the essence of the injustice.
Demonstrators on behalf of social justice are ridiculed as outside agitators, and MLK responds, ‘Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds’.
‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’… ’Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly’. Martin Luther King, Jr. exposes what is happening before us not with name calling and anger but with the slings and arrows of immorality and injustice. Demonstrators on behalf of social justice are ridiculed as outside agitators.
‘Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds’, he wrote.
This comment has noted just a few examples of how Martin Luther King’s Letter may inform and inspire us as we combat Republican attacks on the very foundations of Democracy.
How would MLK feel about his letter written in 1963 from a jail cell in Birmingham being adapted for the handbook to be used by voting rights activists and American citizens in 2022? 2022, fifty-nine years after it was written. Let us all see where America is fifty-nine years after Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his monumental missive.
'Today the median annual wage for Black workers is approximately 30 percent, or $10,000, lower than that of white workers—a figure with enormous implications for household economic security, consumption, and the ability to build wealth. Black workers make up 12.9 percent of the US labor force today but earn only 9.6 percent of total US wages'. (mckinsey)
'Income inequality in the U.S. is the highest of all the G7 nations, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.' (Pew Research)
TC…I admire you as a historian, I thank you as a sister to a brother, I honor you as a man who knows his duty to his fellow human and community.
Peace we will have. As Dr. King knew.
You definitely know how to pass around good feelings, Christine. Thanks!
I ask my students to read it twice. It simply tugs at the heartstrings.
Thanks TC
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
I again read Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Thank you, TC. So relevant to what is happening today.
From Judd Legum at Popular Information, a list of Republicans who voted against voting rights but proclaimed admiration for Dr. King.
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1483095412642881537 (copy and paste)
Thank you.
Thank you for this.
Thank you TC. I had never read his letter and am amazed at this peek into his mind and heart. So hoping that we can see the voting bills passed soon to help finish his dream, and for millions of others also.
I was living in Atlanta during that time, I had been educated by Jesuits in Oregon and only knew about the Deep South from lessons in HS. In the summer of ‘64 we moved here. I had been raised in Detroit, Denver, Seattle, and Portland, those places were each unique but moving here was like moving to another country, I couldn’t wait to get back to Oregon. Family has brought me back here and although I have worked all over the country I have spent more time in Atlanta than anywhere else. This is the first time I have read Dr. King’s letter, I found it deeply moving, thank you TC for making it available, I will pass it on. The man spoke with a rare elegance and everything he said was based on truth just like the Jesuits had taught me, the wisdom of his efforts was based on the solidity of the truth, it didn’t make what he wanted to accomplish easy but it did provide comfort in knowing that he was right. I hope Dr. Warnock reads it in it’s entirety when he speaks in the Senate tomorrow, he’s my Senator and I couldn’t be more proud of him. It needs to be put in the national record, I can’t think of a better man to do it.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter written 59 years ago, while jailed in Birmingham for leading black protestors, provides us with lessons for today -- to engage and mobilize the American people in combating the Republican Party’s attacks on our election system. Changes made by Republican state legislatures, in the main, reduced access to voting primarily of minorities and young voters and greater control over the administration of elections to enable the manipulation of election results. These bills illustrate MLK’s assertion,
‘…the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust.’ ‘I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws,’… ‘Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.
Organizing locally is crucial now as the rights of white residents are favored over Black and Brown residents. Injustice his happening in your backyard.
‘Between January 1 and December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting. More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.’ (BrennanCenter)
These restrictive voting bills are a non-too subtle form of segregation, The election laws being passed by Republican state legislatures are ‘unjust’ they are ‘no law at all’. Residents of the states’ passing such laws can understand the immorality of the bills. Residents of those states will not be alone when confronting their legislators. It is our responsibility as citizens to go where injustice is being committed.
‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’ rings forth from MLK’s LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL ’Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly’. Martin Luther King, Jr. exposes what is happening before us in ways that touch the essence of the injustice.
Demonstrators on behalf of social justice are ridiculed as outside agitators, and MLK responds, ‘Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds’.
‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’… ’Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly’. Martin Luther King, Jr. exposes what is happening before us not with name calling and anger but with the slings and arrows of immorality and injustice. Demonstrators on behalf of social justice are ridiculed as outside agitators.
‘Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds’, he wrote.
This comment has noted just a few examples of how Martin Luther King’s Letter may inform and inspire us as we combat Republican attacks on the very foundations of Democracy.
How would MLK feel about his letter written in 1963 from a jail cell in Birmingham being adapted for the handbook to be used by voting rights activists and American citizens in 2022? 2022, fifty-nine years after it was written. Let us all see where America is fifty-nine years after Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his monumental missive.
'Today the median annual wage for Black workers is approximately 30 percent, or $10,000, lower than that of white workers—a figure with enormous implications for household economic security, consumption, and the ability to build wealth. Black workers make up 12.9 percent of the US labor force today but earn only 9.6 percent of total US wages'. (mckinsey)
'Income inequality in the U.S. is the highest of all the G7 nations, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.' (Pew Research)