The Movement in Crisis: King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

Abstract

Surrounded by two dozen men in Room 30 of the Gaston Motel, the only place for blacks to stay in the steel city, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a decision to make. The effort to desegregate Birmingham that began methodically ten days before was in trouble. Going to jail could jump start it. King had already been in jail many times, and he had picked this symbolic day, April 12, Good Friday, to go to jail again. He had announced it at a mass meeting and had fasted as usual. But now he was wavering.