We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for honest and open negotiation of racial issues in our area. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. In Birmingham, recent public events have given indication that we all have opportunity for a new constructive and realistic approach to racial problems. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on various problems which cause racial friction and unrest. Read the monumental Three-Volume biography of Dr.Since that time there had been some evidence of increased forbearance and a willingness to face facts. Visit the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC: Read the great new book on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King: Peniel Joseph, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King (2020) Read: Jonathan Bass, Blessed are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (2001) Learn more about the Birmingham campaign: Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001) It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.

But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. King to the eight ministers: “You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is widely considered to be one of the most historic documents of the civil rights movement.ĭr. King wrote what became a famous letter in reply to eight white Birmingham ministers who had criticized his Birmingham campaign in a letter entitled, “A Call for Unity.”ĭr. Martin Luther King was arrested during the demonstrations in Birmingham that began on April 3, 1963, which eventually provoked President Kennedy to propose a federal civil rights bill, on June 11, 1963.

Martin luther king letter