“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a famous open letter written by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963. After he was arrested for participating a nonviolent protest in Birmingham, Alabama as part of the Civil Rights Movement, he wrote this letter to address several concerns he had about the concepts of racial segregation and the ideas of racism present in America at the time, particularly the South. It was published in various newspapers and magazines thereafter, and in his book Why We Can’t Wait.
The primary point of the letter was to respond to the “Call for Unity” that white members ...