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Martin Luther King, Jr.
The author of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and a major figure in the Civil Rights Movement. King was a Baptist minister from Atlanta, who came to Alabama to protest segregation in 1963.
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Reverend Earl Stallings
One of the eight white clergymen critical of King’s methods to whom King’s letter is directed. The other seven are unnamed in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Eugene “Bull” Connor
Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, Alabama for a span of 22 years, and an ardent supporter of segregation. Connor ran for mayor in spring of 1963 but lost the run-off election. The election delayed the start of King’s nonviolent campaign. Connor is notable for employing aggressive, violent tactics against King’s campaign, which positioned himself as King’s chief opponent. Connor’s more brutal strategies transpired after King composed “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
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Albert Boutwell
One of the candidates running against Eugene “Bull” Connor in the Birmingham mayoral election. Boutwell, although also a segregationist, was more moderate than Connor. Boutwell won the run-off election against Connor.
George C. Wallace
Four-term governor of Alabama. Wallace supported segregation and the brutal tactics employed by Eugene “Bull” Connor.
Chief Laurie Pritchett
Police chief in Albany, GA, who became known for his suppression of civil rights demonstrations in 1961–1962. King spoke in Albany on December 15, 1961, and was jailed for his participation in protests there.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
Three Hebrew men from the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel. They refuse to obey King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon’s blasphemous commands to bow to his golden statue. They miraculously survived his efforts to burn them alive.
James Meredith
A young Black man whose attempt to enroll in the University of Mississippi in 1962 sparked riots.
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth
Co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organizer of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.
Reinhold Niebuhr
A prominent American theologian and minister in the twentieth century.
Martin Buber
An important Jewish theologian and philosopher of the twentieth century.
Paul Tillich
A key twentieth-century German American theologian and philosopher.
St. Augustine
An influential North African Christian philosopher from the fourth century who spoke of unjust laws being no laws at all.
Socrates
A founding figure in Western philosophy who lived in Greece during the fifth century BCE. Socrates was notable for seeking justice and truth and for civilly rebelling against the status quo in favor of ethical principles.
Elijah Muhammad
American religious figure, leader of the Nation of Islam, and an influential member of the Black separatist movement whose support of violence to ascertain certain means contradicted King’s nonviolent agenda.
Martin Luther
Sixteenth-century German priest and a central figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther wrote the Ninety-five Theses (1517).
John Bunyan
An imprisoned lumberjack who came to symbolize strength and power in the United States and Canada.
Thomas Jefferson
One of the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States who asserted that all men are created equal.
Abraham Lincoln
The author of the Emancipation Proclamation and the sixteenth president of the United States.
Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, and James Dabbs
White activists King mentions as valuable allies in the struggle.
T. S. Eliot
An American poet from the Modernist period of the early twentieth century. King cites Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral (1935), a dramatization of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, near the end of “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to illustrate that it is treason to do that which is right for the wrong purpose.
