Birmingham, Alabama
City in the American state of Alabama. In April 1963 it was the scene of a campaign of demonstrations against racial segregation, during which Martin Luther King Jr wrote his letter from the city jail.
Birmingham lies in north-central Alabama, in the south-eastern United States. Writing from its jail in April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr called it probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the country and said that it had seen more unsolved bombings of Black homes and churches than any other (King, Letter from Birmingham Jail pp. 1–2). The march of Good Friday 1963 set out from a church in the Black district of the city toward city hall (Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307 (1967), Brennan, dissenting, paragraph 77). See the Churches and the Civil Rights Movement.
What happened here
- 16 April 1963, firm dateThe Churches and the Civil Rights Movement
Jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for leading a march against segregation, the minister Martin Luther King Jr answers eight white clergymen who had called the protests untimely. His letter defends breaking unjust laws openly and reproaches the white churches.