Discussion Guide for the Letter from Birmingham Jail

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

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Directions: Read the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. Underline or highlight key phrases or ideas and

write comments or questions in the margins. You can answer the questions in your My Video Journal.

Background: Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the key figures of the Civil Rights Movement that lasted

from 1955 to 1968. During this period, many civil and human rights milestones were achieved, such

as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. King was inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, who used non-

violent resistance to help free the Indian people from British rule.

Rosa Parks was another key figure of the Civil Rights Movement. Her non-violent resistance in refusing

to give up her seat to a white passenger on bus No. 2857 resulted in her arrest in 1955 and led to the

Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In April 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other collaborators engaged in a non-violent campaign

protesting against the segregation policies of the city of Birmingham. King was arrested and jailed for

violating the Alabama law on engaging in a mass public demonstration or protest. The “Letter from

Birmingham Jail” was his response to the claim that he broke the law by engaging in acts of civil

disobedience.

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent

statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do

I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all

the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for

anything other than such correspondence in the day, and I would have no

time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine

goodwill and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to

answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable

terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham since you have been

influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have

the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership

Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with

headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated

organisations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian

Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and

financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago, the affiliate here

in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action

program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when

the hour came, we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several

members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here

because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as

the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their

"thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and

just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of

Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled

to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I

must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and

states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what

happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice

everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in

a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all

indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial

"outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can

never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your

statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the

conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of

you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis

that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.

Why was King in

Birmingham?

How does King

respond to the

charge of being an

outsider?

What does

“Injustice anywhere

is a threat to justice

everywhere” mean?

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but

it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the

Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign, there are four basic steps: a collection of the

facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification;

and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham.

There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this

community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city

in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes

have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been

more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham

than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the

case. Based on these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with

the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith

negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of

Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations,

certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the

stores’ humiliating racial signs. Based on these promises, the Reverend

Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement

for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the

weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a

broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others

remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the

shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative

except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very

bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and

the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to

undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops

on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to

accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of

jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter

season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period

of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would

be the byproduct of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time

to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up

in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election

day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene

"Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the runoff, we decided

again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the

demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others,

we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end, we endured

postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need,

we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer.

What are the four

basic steps of a

non-violent

campaign that King

lays out?

Identify another

historical or current

local, national or

international

example of non-

violent protest that

followed some or

all of these steps?

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth?

Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for

negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent

direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a

community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront

the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent

resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid

of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there

is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind

so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to

the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must

we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in

society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism

to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis

packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I, therefore,

concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved

Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather

than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that my

associates and I have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked:

"Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only

answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham

administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one before

it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert

Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr.

Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both

segregationists, dedicated to the maintenance of the status quo. I have

hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of

massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without

pressure from devotees of civil rights.

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil

rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is

a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges

voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their

unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to

be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily

given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I

have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the

view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of

segregation. For years now, I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the

ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always

Why did King and

his collaborators

pursue nonviolent

direct action (civil

disobedience)

rather than take a

violent approach?

Note that non-

violent direct action

includes sit-ins,

marches, boycotts,

protests and letter-

writing campaigns.

Civil disobedience

or non-violent

action seeks to

create change by

raising awareness

of a situation and

tension around it,

so to rouse the

conscience of a

community.

What does King

mean by

“constructive

nonviolent tension”

and how does he

define its goal?

How successful is

non-violent

pressure been in

creating change?

Choose an example

from around the

world that

represents the

experience that

freedom is never

voluntarily granted

by the oppressor.

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

meant “Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists,

that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-

given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed

toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and

buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is

easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say,

"Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and

fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have

seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and

sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro

brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty amid an affluent society;

when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering

as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the

public amusement park that has just been advertised on television and see

tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to

coloured children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form

in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by

developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you

have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy,

why do white people treat coloured people so mean?"; when you take a

cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the

uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept

you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading

"white" and "coloured"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your

middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name

becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected

title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact

that you are a Negro, constantly living at tiptoe stance, never quite

knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer

resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of

"nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no

longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can

understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This

is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey

the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public

schools, at first glance, it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously

to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some

laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two

types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just

laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.

Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would

agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine

whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a human-made code that

List the injustices

that King identifies

here. Choose three

and compare them

to the rights

guaranteed in the

Universal

Declaration of

Human Rights

King writes in his

letter that there are

two types of laws.

What are they?

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

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Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that

is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in terms of St. Thomas

Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and

natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is. Any law that

degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust

because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives

the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense

of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish

philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou"

relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence

segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound;

it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is

not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his

awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men

to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and

I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally

wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust

law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority

group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is the difference

made legal. A just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow

and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a

minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in

enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama

which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected?

Throughout Alabama, all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent

Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in

which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a

single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances

be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For

instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit.

Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires

I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I

advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist?

That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so

openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that

an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who

willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment to arouse the conscience of

the community over its injustice, is, in reality, expressing the highest

respect for the law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was

evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to

obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law

What is the

difference between

the two types of

law?

Provide an example

of an unjust law

that you feel a

moral obligation to

disobey?

What if King’s

actions do not

rouse the

conscience of the

community?

Is civil disobedience

worth it?

Do you agree that

breaking an unjust

law is an expression

of respect for the

law?

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were

willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks

rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a

degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced

civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a

massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was

"legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was

"illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even

so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided

and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country

where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would

openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish

brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years, I have been

gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the

regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride

toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councillor or the Ku Klux

Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to

justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a

positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I

agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods

of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for

another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who

constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than

absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is

much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order

exist to establish justice and that when they fail in this purpose, they

become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social

progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the

present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an

obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his

unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will

respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who

engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We

merely bring to the face the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring

it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can

never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its

ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be

exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human

conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement, you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must

be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical

assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession

Provide an example

of civil

disobedience in

your community.

What are the social

and legal

consequences for

civil disobedience?

Would you obey an

unjust law?

King describes

examples of

“negative peace”.

What does he mean

by this?

Review the Six

Principles of

Nonviolence

handout

Compare the

principles with the

actions and

philosophy of King

as described in the

letter he wrote.

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning

Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his

philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in

which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus

because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to

God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see

that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge

an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights

because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the

robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth

concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received

a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that

the coloured people will receive equal rights eventually, but you may be in

too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity for almost two

thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time

to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of

time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the

very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is

neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.

More and more, I feel that the people will have used time much more

effectively than have the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this

generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people

but the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls

in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men

willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time itself

becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time

creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is

the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our

pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the

time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the

solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first, I was rather

disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as

those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the

middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of

complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of

oppression, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness"

that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class

Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and

because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive

to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and

hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed

in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the

nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim

movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued

existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who

How might other

clergy have viewed

King’s efforts as an

extremist?

E4J Secondary Education: Terrorism and

Violent Extremism - Teacher’s Guide

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime │ Vienna International Centre │ PO Box 500 │ 1400 Vienna │ Austria

Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-0 │ Email: unodc-e4j@un.org | www.unodc.org/e4j

have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity,

and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil

that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with

all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be