Augustine and Socrates to Thomas Jefferson and then-Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, who had overseen the Supreme Court’s landmark civil rights ruling in Brown v. King drew inspiration for his words from a long line of religious and political philosophers, quoting everyone from St.

Over the course of the letter’s 7,000 words, he turned the criticism back upon both the nation’s religious leaders and more moderate-minded white Americans, castigating them for sitting passively on the sidelines while King and others risked everything agitating for change. READ MORE: 10 Things You May Not Know About Martin Luther King Jr. Without notes or research materials, King drafted an impassioned defense of his use of nonviolent, but direct, actions. Isolated in his cell, King began working on a response. Shortly after King’s arrest, a friend smuggled in a copy of an April 12 Birmingham newspaper which included an open letter, written by eight local Christian and Jewish religious leaders, which criticized both the demonstrations and King himself, whom they considered an outside agitator. As previously agreed upon, King was not immediately bailed out of jail by his supporters, having instead agreed to a longer stay in jail to draw additional attention to the plight of black Americans. Kennedy was urged to intervene on his behalf.

Thrown into solitary confinement, King was initially denied access to his lawyers or allowed to contact his wife, until President John F. For months, an organized boycott of the city’s white-owned businesses had failed to achieve any substantive results, leaving King and others convinced they had no other options but more direct actions, ignoring a recently passed ordinance that prohibited public gathering without an official permit.įor King, this arrest-his 13th-would become one of the most important of his career. and nearly 50 other protestors and civil rights leaders were arrested after leading a Good Friday demonstration as part of the Birmingham Campaign, designed to bring national attention to the brutal, racist treatment suffered by blacks in one of the most segregated cities in America-Birmingham, Alabama.

Birmingham martin luther king