Work · Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.)
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Written in jail in April 1963 in reply to eight white clergymen who had called the protests “unwise and untimely”: a defence of nonviolent direct action, of the distinction between just and unjust laws, and a reproach to the “white moderate” who prefers order to justice.
Introduction
King wrote the letter in April 1963 in the Birmingham jail, after his arrest for defying a court injunction against demonstrations; he began it in the margins of a newspaper that printed a statement by eight white clergymen who called the protests “unwise and untimely”. It circulated as a pamphlet and in magazines and in 1964 became part of “Why We Can’t Wait”. King defends nonviolent direct action as a way to create a “creative tension” that forces negotiation, and with Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Martin Buber he distinguishes just from unjust laws: segregation is unjust because it degrades persons into things. Whoever breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and willing to accept the penalty. King reserves his sharpest criticism for the “white moderate” who prefers order to justice. The letter became a standard text in theories of civil disobedience.
Connections
Builds on
- I and Thou1923 · Martin Buber
More works by Martin Luther King Jr.
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