Letter From Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Background - In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), targeted Birmingham, Alabama, with a series of peaceful demonstrations aimed at the ending segregation. The police reacted violently with attack dogs and high-pressure fire hoses. Hundreds of protesters, including King, were jailed. At first, King was criticized for taking on Birmingham; eight white clergymen published a letter calling his actions "unwise and untimely." But he responded with his own letter citing philosophers, religious scholars, and biblical figures to justify his
actions.
April 16, 1963
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.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced
by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as President
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern
state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations
across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.
Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months
ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent directaction
program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came,
we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was
invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of
the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the
boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried
the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to
carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to
the Macedonian call for aid! 1
1. Macedonian (măśĭ-dō'nēən) call for aid: According to the Bible (Acts 16), the apostle Paul received a vision
calling him to preac in Macedonia, an area north of Greece.
affiliated - (kŏg'nĭ-zənt) adj. joined in close association
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit
idly in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can
we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the
United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am
sorry to say, fails so express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the
demonstrations. 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. 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.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine
whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through
all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs
this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United
States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust
treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches
in Birmingham that in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On
the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the
latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiations.
Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's
economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the
merchants -- for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs.2 On the basis of these
promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement
for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months
went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly
removed, returned; the others remained.
As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep
disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action,
whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience
of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to
undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we
repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to
endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter
season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year.
Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program3 would be the by-product of direct action,
we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed
change.
Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoralty election was coming up in March,
and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the
Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the
run-off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the
2. racial signs: signs marking segregated buildings and other facilities.
3. economic-withdrawal program: boycott
cognizant - (kŏg'nĭ-zənt) adj. aware
moratorium - (môr'ə-tôr'ē-əm) n. a temporary stoppage or waiting period
retaliating - (rĭ-tăl'ē-ātĭng) n. taking revenge retaliate v.
demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr.
Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in
this community need, we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn't negotiation a
better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of
direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a
community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so
to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of
the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not
afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of
constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates4 felt that it was
necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of
myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must
we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men
rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and
brotherhood.
The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it
will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for
negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in
monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have
taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city
administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new
Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will
act...My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without
determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged
groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and
voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr5 has reminded us, groups tend
to be more immoral that individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action
campaign that was "well timed" in view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease
of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro
with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see,
with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more that 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The
nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence,
but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait."
But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your
sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill
your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro
brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you
4. Socrates (sŏk'rə-tēz'): Greek philosopher (470-399 B.C.) who was a major influence in the development of
Western thought.
5. Reinhold Niebuhr (nē'bŏŏr'): American theologian (1892-1971) whose writings deal mainly with moral and social problems.
suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your
six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been
advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is
closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little
mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious
bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who
is asking, "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a crosscountry
drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your
automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by
nagging signs reading "white" and "colored" when your first name becomes "nigger," your
middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and
your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when your are harried by day
and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never
quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when
you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we
find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no
longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our
legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a
legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of
1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools6, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical
for us consciously to break laws. One may ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and
obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I
would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust
laws. I would agree with St. Augustine7 that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is
just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.
An unjust law is a code that is out of Harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St.
Thomas Aquinas: 8 An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural
law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is
unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the
personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, 9
substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the
status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically
unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich10 has said that sin is separation. Is not
segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his
terrible sinfulness? Thus is it that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme
6. Supreme Court decision...public schools: the United States Supreme Court's decision in the case Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
7. St. Augustine (ô'gə-stēn'): North African bishop (A.D. 354-430) regarded as a founding father of Christianity.
8. St. Thomas Aquinas (ə-kwī'nəs): noted philosopher and theologian (1225-1274).
9. Martin Buber (bōōbər): influential philosopher (1878-1965) with great impact on Jewish and Christian
theology.
10. Paul Tillich (tĭl'ĭk): German-born American theologian (1886-1965).
paradoxical (păr'ə-dŏk'sĭ-kəl) adj. self-contradictory
estrangement (ĭ-strānj'ment) n. separation; alienation
Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are
morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code
that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make
binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a
majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness
made legal.
Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a
result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say
that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically
elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from
becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes
constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted
under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been
arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an
ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is
used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful
assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I
advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to
anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to
accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is
unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience
of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced
sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of
Nebuchadnezzar, 11 on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly
by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of
chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree,
academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own
nation, the Boston Tea Party12 represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and
everything the Hungarian freedom fighters13 did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid
and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. 'Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the
time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist
country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly
advocate disobeying that country's anti-religious laws.
11. the refusal...Nebuchadnezzar (nĕb'ə-kəd-nĕz'ər): In the Bible (Daniel3), Shadrach (shăd'răk), Meshack
(mē'shăch), and Abednego (ə-bĕd'nĭ-gō') are three Hebrews condemned to death for refusing to worship an idol
set up by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. However, they were miraculously protected from the flames in the
furnace into which they were thrown.
12. Boston Tea Party: In 1773, American rebels dumped 15,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor to protest the
British Tea Act.
13. Hungarian freedom fighters: Hungarians who participated in an unsuccessful 1956 rebellion against the
Communist government of their homeland. The rebellion was crushed by Soviet troops.
rabid (răb'ĭd) adj. unreasonably extreme; fanatical
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I
must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white
moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling
block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner,14
but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative
peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who
constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of
direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another mans freedom;
who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro the wait for a
"more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating
that absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more
bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the
purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the
dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white
moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the
transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust
plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth
of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of
tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out
in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it
is covered up but must be opened with all it ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light
injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human
conscience and the air of national opinion, before it can be cured.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned
because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a
robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like
condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical
inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock?
Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing
devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the
federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to
gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must
protect the robbed and punish the robber...
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually
manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has
reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can
be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist,15 and with his
black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the
Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised
land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community,
one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many
pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him
14. the White...Klanner: members of white supremacist groups.
15. Zeitgeist (tsī'gīst') German: the spirit of the time; that is, the beliefs and attitudes shared by most people living
in a particular period.
substantive (sŭb'stən-tĭv) adj. significant; with a strong basis
latent (lāt'nt) adj. existing in a hidden form
make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -- and try to understand
why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek
expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my
people, "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy
discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this
approach is being termed extremist.
But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I
continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.
Was not Jesus and extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not
Amos16 an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like am
ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the
marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther17 an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do
otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan:18 "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before
I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half
slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal . . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of
extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the
preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvery's hill19
three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime -
- the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their
environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby
rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of
creative extremists...
I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for
their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of
great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James
Merediths, 20 with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs,
and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old,
oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in
Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and when her people decided not to
ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired
about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high
school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders,
courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for
conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat
down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream
and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back
to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their
formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
16. Amos: Hebrew prophet whose words are recorded in the Old Testament book bearing his name.
17. Martin Luther: German monk (1483-1546) who launched the Protestant Reformation.
18. John Bunyan: English preacher and author (1628-1688) who was twice imprisoned for unlicensed
preaching.
19. Calvary's hill: the site of Jesus' crucifixion.
20. James Merediths: people like James Meredith, who endured violent opposition from whites to become the
first African American to attend the University of Mississippi.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your
precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a
comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than
write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable
impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and
indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg
God to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon
make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as
a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial
prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear
drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King Jr.
scintillating (sĭn'tl-ā;tĭng) adj. sparkling scintillate v.
