Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Cross References
- Entries
- Abbott, Robert S.
- Abele, Julian F.
- Affirmative Action
- Africa
- African Blood Brotherhood (ABB)
- Afro-American Studies
- Agriculture
- AIDS
- Ali, Muhammad
- Allen, Richard
- American Revolution
- Anderson, Marian
- Angelou, Maya
- Anticommunism
- Antilynching Campaign
- Antislavery Movement
- Antiterror Wars
- Apartheid
- Architecture
- Art
- Ashe, Arthur R.
- Associated Negro Press (ANP)
- Atlanta Compromise (1895)
- Back-to-Africa Movement
- Baker, Ella J.
- Baker v. Carr (1962)
- Bakke v. Board of Regents of California (1978)
- Baldwin, James
- Barnett, Claude A.
- Bates, Daisy L.
- Bethune, Mary McLeod
- Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
- Black Arts Movement
- Black Belt
- Black Bourgeoisie (1957)
- Black Manifesto (1969)
- Black Nationalism
- Black Panther Party (BPP)
- Black Power Movement
- Black Towns
- Bloody Sunday
- Bond, Horace M.
- Bond, Julian
- Bouchet, Edward A.
- Brooke, Edward W.
- Brooks, Gwendolyn E.
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP)
- Brown, Charlotte Hawkins
- Brown, James N. (Jim)
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
- Buchanan v. Warley (1917)
- Buffalo Soldiers
- Bunche, Ralph J.
- Business
- Caesar, Shirley
- Capitalism
- Carmichael, Stokely (Kwame Turé)
- Carver, George Washington
- Chesnutt, Charles W.
- Children's Defense Fund (CDF)
- Chisholm, Shirley A.
- Cities
- Civil Rights Act of 1957
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Civil Rights Act of 1968
- Civil Rights Movement (CRM)
- Civil War
- Clark, Kenneth B.
- Clark, Septima P.
- Clubs
- Cold War
- Colonialism
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Constitution, US (1789)
- Conventions, National Negro
- Convict-Lease System
- Cooper, Anna Julia
- Cosby, William H. (Bill)
- Dance
- Davis, Angela Y.
- Davis, W. Allison
- Death Penalty
- Delany, Martin R.
- DePriest, Oscar S.
- Desegregation
- Divine, Father (George Baker)
- Douglass, Frederick
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
- Drew, Charles R.
- Du Bois, W. E. B.
- Durham Manifesto (1942)
- Education
- Ellison, Ralph
- Emancipation
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- Evers, Medgar W.
- Executive Order 9981 (1948)
- Exodusters
- Family
- Farmer, James L.
- Farrakhan, Louis A.
- Feminism
- Film
- Fisher, Miles Mark
- Foreign Affairs
- “Forty Acres and a Mule”
- Four Freedoms
- Franklin, Aretha L.
- Franklin, John Hope
- Fraternal Orders and Lodges
- Fraternities
- Free African Society (FAS)
- Free Blacks
- Freedmen's Bank
- Freedmen's Bureau
- Freedom Rides
- Freedom Summer
- Freedom Train
- Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
- Garvey, Marcus M.
- Ghetto
- G. I. Bill (1944)
- Gibson, Althea
- Gospel of Freedom
- Graves, Earl G.
- Great Depression
- Great Migration
- Haitian Revolution
- Hall, Prince
- Hamer, Fannie Lou
- Hampton–Tuskegee Idea
- Hancock, Gordon B.
- Handy, William C. (W. C.)
- Harlem Renaissance
- Harris, Abram L.
- Hastie, William H.
- Height, Dorothy I.
- Higginbotham, H. Leon
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
- Hope, John
- Horne, Lena M.
- Houston, Charles H.
- Hughes, Langston
- Humphrey–Hawkins Bill (1976)
- Immigration
- Indentured Servitude
- Indian Wars
- Institute of the Black World (IBW)
- Interracial Relations
- Jackson, Jesse L.
- Jackson, Luther P.
- Jackson, Mahalia
- Jackson, Michael J.
- Jacobs, Harriet A.
- Jemison, Mae C.
- Jobs Campaigns
- John Brown's Raid
- John Henryism
- Johnson, John A. (Jack)
- Johnson, John H.
- Johnson, Sargent C.
- Jordan, Barbara C.
- Jordan, Michael J.
- Journalism
- Journey of Reconciliation (1947)
- Just, Ernest E.
- Justice, US Department of
- Katzenbach v. McClung (1964)
- Kerner Report
- King, Martin Luther, Jr.
- Korean War
- Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
- Kwanzaa
- Labor
- Law Enforcement
- Lawson, James M.
- Lee, Shelton J. (Spike)
- Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
- Lewis, Edmonia
- Lewis, John R.
- Lewis, Reginald F.
- “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
- Literature
- Little (X), Malcolm
- Little Rock Crisis
- Louis, Joe
- Loving v. Virginia (1967)
- Mandela, Nelson R.
- Manumission
- March on Washington (1963)
- March on Washington Movement (MOWM)
- Marshall, Thurgood
- Massive Resistance
- Mays, Benjamin E.
- McCoy, Elijah J.
- McKissick, Floyd B.
- McKissick v. Carmichael (1951)
- Medicine
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Military
- Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
- Minorities, Racial and Ethnic
- Miscegenation
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
- Mitchell, Clarence M.
- Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Moore, Harry T.
- Morgan v. Virginia (1946)
- Morrison, Toni
- Moseley-Braun, Carol
- Motley, Constance Baker
- Moynihan Report
- Muhammad, Elijah
- Multiculturalism
- Murray, Pauli
- Music
- Nation of Islam (NOI)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW)
- National Association of Colored Women (NACW)
- National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
- National Urban League (NUL)
- Négritude
- Negro History Movement
- New Left
- New Negro Movement
- Niagara Movement
- Norris v. Alabama (1935)
- Obama, Barack H.
- Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity)
- Owens, James C. (Jesse)
- Pan-African Movement
- Parks, Gordon
- Parks, Rosa L.
- Persian Gulf War
- Philanthropy
- Photography
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- Politics
- Port Chicago Mutiny (1944)
- Poverty
- Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.
- Powell, Colin L.
- Race Labels
- Race Man/Woman
- Randolph, A. Philip
- Reconstruction (1865–77)
- Redistricting
- Religion
- Resegregation
- Rice, Condoleeza
- Robeson, Paul
- Robinson, Jack R. (Jackie)
- Roots
- Rosenwald Schools
- Rustin, Bayard T.
- Scholarship
- Science
- Segregation
- Share Croppers’ Union (SCU)
- Sharecropping
- Shaw v. Reno (1993)
- Sit-ins
- Slavery
- Smith v. Allwright (1944)
- Societies, Mutual Aid
- Sororities
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC)
- Spanish-American War
- Spaulding, Charles C.
- Sports
- State Convention of Colored Men of Texas (1883)
- Student Activism
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
- Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
- Talented Tenth
- Technology
- Television
- Temperance Movement
- Terrell, Mary Church
- Theatre
- Thomas, Clarence
- Thurman, Howard
- TransAfrica
- Truth, Sojourner
- Tubman, Harriet R.
- Tuskegee Experiment
- Tuskegee Machine
- Underground Railroad
- United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
- Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
- Vietnam War
- Violence, Racial
- Voter Education Project (VEP)
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Wagner Act (1935)
- Walker, Alice
- Walker, David
- Walker, Madam C. J.
- Walker, Maggie Lena
- Washington, Booker T.
- Weaver, Robert C.
- Welfare
- Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
- Wheatley, Phillis
- White, Walter F.
- Wilder, L. Douglas
- Wilkins, Roy O.
- Williams, Robert F.
- Wilmington Ten
- Winfrey, Oprah G.
- Woods, Eldrick T. (Tiger)
- Woodson, Carter G.
- World War I
- World War II
- Wright, Richard
- Young, Andrew J.
- Young, Plummer B.
- Young, Whitney M.
- Index
- References
Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
from Entries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Cross References
- Entries
- Abbott, Robert S.
- Abele, Julian F.
- Affirmative Action
- Africa
- African Blood Brotherhood (ABB)
- Afro-American Studies
- Agriculture
- AIDS
- Ali, Muhammad
- Allen, Richard
- American Revolution
- Anderson, Marian
- Angelou, Maya
- Anticommunism
- Antilynching Campaign
- Antislavery Movement
- Antiterror Wars
- Apartheid
- Architecture
- Art
- Ashe, Arthur R.
- Associated Negro Press (ANP)
- Atlanta Compromise (1895)
- Back-to-Africa Movement
- Baker, Ella J.
- Baker v. Carr (1962)
- Bakke v. Board of Regents of California (1978)
- Baldwin, James
- Barnett, Claude A.
- Bates, Daisy L.
- Bethune, Mary McLeod
- Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
- Black Arts Movement
- Black Belt
- Black Bourgeoisie (1957)
- Black Manifesto (1969)
- Black Nationalism
- Black Panther Party (BPP)
- Black Power Movement
- Black Towns
- Bloody Sunday
- Bond, Horace M.
- Bond, Julian
- Bouchet, Edward A.
- Brooke, Edward W.
- Brooks, Gwendolyn E.
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP)
- Brown, Charlotte Hawkins
- Brown, James N. (Jim)
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
- Buchanan v. Warley (1917)
- Buffalo Soldiers
- Bunche, Ralph J.
- Business
- Caesar, Shirley
- Capitalism
- Carmichael, Stokely (Kwame Turé)
- Carver, George Washington
- Chesnutt, Charles W.
- Children's Defense Fund (CDF)
- Chisholm, Shirley A.
- Cities
- Civil Rights Act of 1957
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Civil Rights Act of 1968
- Civil Rights Movement (CRM)
- Civil War
- Clark, Kenneth B.
- Clark, Septima P.
- Clubs
- Cold War
- Colonialism
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Constitution, US (1789)
- Conventions, National Negro
- Convict-Lease System
- Cooper, Anna Julia
- Cosby, William H. (Bill)
- Dance
- Davis, Angela Y.
- Davis, W. Allison
- Death Penalty
- Delany, Martin R.
- DePriest, Oscar S.
- Desegregation
- Divine, Father (George Baker)
- Douglass, Frederick
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
- Drew, Charles R.
- Du Bois, W. E. B.
- Durham Manifesto (1942)
- Education
- Ellison, Ralph
- Emancipation
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- Evers, Medgar W.
- Executive Order 9981 (1948)
- Exodusters
- Family
- Farmer, James L.
- Farrakhan, Louis A.
- Feminism
- Film
- Fisher, Miles Mark
- Foreign Affairs
- “Forty Acres and a Mule”
- Four Freedoms
- Franklin, Aretha L.
- Franklin, John Hope
- Fraternal Orders and Lodges
- Fraternities
- Free African Society (FAS)
- Free Blacks
- Freedmen's Bank
- Freedmen's Bureau
- Freedom Rides
- Freedom Summer
- Freedom Train
- Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
- Garvey, Marcus M.
- Ghetto
- G. I. Bill (1944)
- Gibson, Althea
- Gospel of Freedom
- Graves, Earl G.
- Great Depression
- Great Migration
- Haitian Revolution
- Hall, Prince
- Hamer, Fannie Lou
- Hampton–Tuskegee Idea
- Hancock, Gordon B.
- Handy, William C. (W. C.)
- Harlem Renaissance
- Harris, Abram L.
- Hastie, William H.
- Height, Dorothy I.
- Higginbotham, H. Leon
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
- Hope, John
- Horne, Lena M.
- Houston, Charles H.
- Hughes, Langston
- Humphrey–Hawkins Bill (1976)
- Immigration
- Indentured Servitude
- Indian Wars
- Institute of the Black World (IBW)
- Interracial Relations
- Jackson, Jesse L.
- Jackson, Luther P.
- Jackson, Mahalia
- Jackson, Michael J.
- Jacobs, Harriet A.
- Jemison, Mae C.
- Jobs Campaigns
- John Brown's Raid
- John Henryism
- Johnson, John A. (Jack)
- Johnson, John H.
- Johnson, Sargent C.
- Jordan, Barbara C.
- Jordan, Michael J.
- Journalism
- Journey of Reconciliation (1947)
- Just, Ernest E.
- Justice, US Department of
- Katzenbach v. McClung (1964)
- Kerner Report
- King, Martin Luther, Jr.
- Korean War
- Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
- Kwanzaa
- Labor
- Law Enforcement
- Lawson, James M.
- Lee, Shelton J. (Spike)
- Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
- Lewis, Edmonia
- Lewis, John R.
- Lewis, Reginald F.
- “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
- Literature
- Little (X), Malcolm
- Little Rock Crisis
- Louis, Joe
- Loving v. Virginia (1967)
- Mandela, Nelson R.
- Manumission
- March on Washington (1963)
- March on Washington Movement (MOWM)
- Marshall, Thurgood
- Massive Resistance
- Mays, Benjamin E.
- McCoy, Elijah J.
- McKissick, Floyd B.
- McKissick v. Carmichael (1951)
- Medicine
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Military
- Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
- Minorities, Racial and Ethnic
- Miscegenation
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
- Mitchell, Clarence M.
- Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Moore, Harry T.
- Morgan v. Virginia (1946)
- Morrison, Toni
- Moseley-Braun, Carol
- Motley, Constance Baker
- Moynihan Report
- Muhammad, Elijah
- Multiculturalism
- Murray, Pauli
- Music
- Nation of Islam (NOI)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW)
- National Association of Colored Women (NACW)
- National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
- National Urban League (NUL)
- Négritude
- Negro History Movement
- New Left
- New Negro Movement
- Niagara Movement
- Norris v. Alabama (1935)
- Obama, Barack H.
- Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity)
- Owens, James C. (Jesse)
- Pan-African Movement
- Parks, Gordon
- Parks, Rosa L.
- Persian Gulf War
- Philanthropy
- Photography
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- Politics
- Port Chicago Mutiny (1944)
- Poverty
- Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.
- Powell, Colin L.
- Race Labels
- Race Man/Woman
- Randolph, A. Philip
- Reconstruction (1865–77)
- Redistricting
- Religion
- Resegregation
- Rice, Condoleeza
- Robeson, Paul
- Robinson, Jack R. (Jackie)
- Roots
- Rosenwald Schools
- Rustin, Bayard T.
- Scholarship
- Science
- Segregation
- Share Croppers’ Union (SCU)
- Sharecropping
- Shaw v. Reno (1993)
- Sit-ins
- Slavery
- Smith v. Allwright (1944)
- Societies, Mutual Aid
- Sororities
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC)
- Spanish-American War
- Spaulding, Charles C.
- Sports
- State Convention of Colored Men of Texas (1883)
- Student Activism
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
- Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
- Talented Tenth
- Technology
- Television
- Temperance Movement
- Terrell, Mary Church
- Theatre
- Thomas, Clarence
- Thurman, Howard
- TransAfrica
- Truth, Sojourner
- Tubman, Harriet R.
- Tuskegee Experiment
- Tuskegee Machine
- Underground Railroad
- United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
- Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
- Vietnam War
- Violence, Racial
- Voter Education Project (VEP)
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Wagner Act (1935)
- Walker, Alice
- Walker, David
- Walker, Madam C. J.
- Walker, Maggie Lena
- Washington, Booker T.
- Weaver, Robert C.
- Welfare
- Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
- Wheatley, Phillis
- White, Walter F.
- Wilder, L. Douglas
- Wilkins, Roy O.
- Williams, Robert F.
- Wilmington Ten
- Winfrey, Oprah G.
- Woods, Eldrick T. (Tiger)
- Woodson, Carter G.
- World War I
- World War II
- Wright, Richard
- Young, Andrew J.
- Young, Plummer B.
- Young, Whitney M.
- Index
- References
Summary
During the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Birmingham campaign (1963), police brutally attacked nonviolent demonstrators, including hundreds of schoolchildren. They used firemen with high-pressure water hoses and attack dogs, as media reported and televised race brutality to the nation and world. Among the protest leaders arrested, King was held in City Jail. A Post-Herald statement by eight white clergy criticized him for the civil disorders, which particularly put children at risk.
King answered them. He began drafting a reply in the margins of the newspaper, continued on scraps of paper “supplied by a friendly Negro trusty,” and finished “on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me.” Writing to his critics in the New Testament tradition of the Apostle Paul, King gave biblical and philosophical reasons for why he must “carry the gospel of freedom to all communities and states.” He defended the use of nonviolence and direct action, its timing, and its call to justice. King also deplored the moral fence-sitting of “the white moderate” and commended the “still too few” antiracist whites. Finally, he expressed hope “to meet each of you ... as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother.”
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016