Interlude: King’s Letter to America

Abstract

One of the most significant documents in American history is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’. It has been compared to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Emile Zola’s letter in defence of Dreyfus and John F. Kennedy’s s Inauguration Speech. Like these classics, King’s Letter is a model of expository prose, and testimony to the power of ideas to transcend time. In the spring of 1963, a dramatic moment had arrived in the civil rights movement, calling for a statement of goals and principles. Having launched the Birmingham campaign, King was arrested on Good Friday, 12 April 1963, and placed in solitary confinement for violating a state court injunction prohibiting protest demonstrations. While imprisoned, King composed the famous Letter, seizing the opportunity to defend his philosophy of nonviolent resistance and present the case of black Americans to the entire nation.