Letter from the Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr. rarely had time to answer his critics. But on April 16 1963 he was confined to the Birmingham jail serving a sentence for participating in civil rights demonstrations. "Alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell " King pondered a letter that fellow clergymen had published urging him to drop his campaign of nonviolent resistance and to leave the battle for racial equality to the courts. In response King drafted his most extensive and forceful written statement against social injustice - a remarkable essay that focused the worlds attention on Birmingham and spurred the famous March on Washington. Bristling with the energy and resonance of his great speeches Letter from the Birmingham Jail is both a compelling defense of nonviolent demonstration and a rallying cry for an end to social discrimination that is just as powerful today as it was more than twenty years ago.