payment page
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is an pivotal contribution to ongoing debates about American ideals and principles. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gestures to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation in his text and, although it is not literally a framing document, its moral authority about American values equals its important predecessors. At the core of the letter, which King writes in defense of the campaign to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, is a powerful reiteration of the importance of civil disobedience in the service of justice. King argues for the need to fight injustice wherever it emerges as a matter of political necessity, insisting that it is also a fundamental religious and moral obligation. King’s deft use of language allows him to develop these philosophical ideas for a mass audience, welcoming everyone of good will to the fight.
The letter’s style can be divided into two parts: one in which King defends the campaign, followed by a second where he attacks his attackers. The linked themes of justice and faith run through both sections. In his defense, King details the principles of nonviolent direct action, using the Birmingham campaign to clarify its precepts. Most important to this discussion is the way that nonviolence transfers the tension oppressed people feel to the persons or community oppressing them. Rather than allowing tension to explode into violence, in other words, nonviolent direct action uses it as a weapon, forcing others to feel what the oppressed feel. By using feelings rather than fists, such campaigns can win adherents and garner public support, all of which will culminate finally in social change. King is explicit that it takes work to engage in these campaigns, which must be pursued with commitment and dedication; it is not sufficient merely to wait for change to take place for, as he repeats across the letter, those in power rarely relinquish it voluntarily.
When King shifts to critique, he targets white moderates and white religious institutions. The latter is an obvious choice, perhaps, given that the impetus for his writing “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a public letter from eight white clergymen condemning King's actions. But it is the former that has attracted the most attention. King states unequivocally that the complicity of white people, particularly those who purport to support social change but oppose every method to accomplish it, is the most demoralizing impediment to success. Valuing order or calm over justice, such people demonstrate that their commitment to justice is shallow, informed more by their own needs and priorities than the need to remedy inequity. What is true of these white moderates is equally true of their religious institutions, which are likewise shown to fall short in ethical integrity.
What King does not include in his letter is as important to its meaning as what he does. He skips over the details of his incarceration, why he was arrested, or what he has endured in jail. He does not provide a detailed overview of the conditions in Birmingham that sparked the protests. Nor does he include the names of the eight religious leaders who wrote the letter condemning his actions or other white moderates he might have in mind. By withholding all this information, King centers ideas rather than incidents. The struggle in Birmingham is simply one piece of a larger fight and his rhetorical strategies, the decisions he makes about how to write the letter, foreground this larger context. As he explains elsewhere, the enemy he and his fellow protesters are working to defeat is not an individual but instead a system of oppression. It is this system or structure that enables specific instances of subjugation.
King’s emphasis on ideas means that no clear antagonist or opponent appears in the text. He mentions many people by name, including some from Birmingham, but they join the wide array of figures referenced as King moves through his argument. Instead of fighting particular individuals, he is fighting ideas and the systems they support. The actions of individuals are sometimes mentioned but more often no names or details are provided, and they are included as examples of the larger systems that undergird racism and inequity. King’s strategy contributes to the letter’s lasting impact. As long as racism and injustice exist in the world, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” will offer counsel and succor to those fighting to eradicate them, as well as pointed words directed at the people who misguidedly cling to their false comforts.
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written in the middle of the Birmingham campaign, which turned much more violent almost immediately after its composition. In the end, the protesters proved successful, and the process of desegregation began in the city. But the end of the campaign did not render King’s letter obsolete. It reached a wide audience in the summer of 1963. After its initial distribution in Birmingham, the letter was republished in religious periodicals, like Christian Century and Christianity and Crisis, as well as the mass-market magazine, Ebony, issued as a pamphlet and, finally, included in King’s 1964 account of the Birmingham campaign, Why We Can’t Wait. Today it is one of the most important, influential, and inspiring documents to emerge out of the civil rights campaign of the 1960s.
