We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death
Angela Davis
For Release
Black History Month 2005
LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
Martin Luther King Jr.
In the spring of 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. was hauled off to jail following peaceful demonstrations in
Birmingham, Ala., during which police, under the orders of Public Safety
Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor and other officials, beat, hosed
and unleashed vicious dogs on thousands of black demonstrators. When King was criticized by a group of white clergymen for causing the
violence, he penned a passionate response, smuggling it out on margins
of newspapers and any scrap of paper he could find. Here are excerpts
from the letter, a defense of anti-violent action against oppression.
