The Letter that Prompted “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”
Fifty years ago yesterday, a group of eight white Birmingham clergy published “A Call For Unity,” an open letter criticizing Martin Luther King and other civil rights organizers. The letter, excerpted below and available in fullhere, prompted King to write Letter From Birmingham Jail.
“We are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely…
“We believe this kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experiences of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its accomplishment.
“Just as we formerly pointed out that ‘hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions,’ we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not