Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia and earned a B.A. from Morehouse College in 1948, a B.D. from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951, and a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1955. King was a Baptist minister, the founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from its inception in 1957 until his death, and president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. King's best known books are Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958), The Measure of a Man (1959), Why We Can't Wait (1964), and WhereDo We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967). Among many awards and honors, King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the U.S.A.'s highest civilian honor—in 1977. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. King wrote the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in 1963 in response to an appeal from eight Alabama clergymen that he stop organizing civil rights protests there. It was later collected in Why We Can't Wait.

CONTENT

1. What, according to King, are the four basic steps in any nonviolent campaign?
2. Why does King decide to answer the criticism directed at him?
3. Where does the author make mention of Thomas Jefferson and "The Declaration of Independence?" To what effect?
4. To what Supreme Court decision does King make reference in this letter? What was the nature of the decision?
5. In what ways does King counter the claim that he is an "outsider"?
6. Define King's phrase direct action movement. What are the characteristics of these movements? What examples does he provide?
7. Discuss the author's examination of just and unjust laws. Include specific examples from your text.

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Find a metaphor in paragraph twelve that involves a drug. Describe the comparison in as much detail as you can. What mental image do you come up with? How can you tie this image into the author's feelings about civil rights struggles?
2. What is King's stated audience here? How has that audience changed over time? Are there any indications in the letter itself that King was hoping to appeal to a broader audience than stated even at the time of the writing?
3. Find a series of similes in paragraph twenty-two. What comparisons are being made? How does the author use this series to explain his protests? How effective do you find this approach?
4. What is King's argument in this letter? Discuss the main points he proposes. What kinds of evidence does he use to back up his points?
5. Where does King particularly attack the clergymen's claim that the Birmingham police force acted appropriately during the protests? How does the placement of this attack give it emphasis? How else does he underline his points in this regard?

1. What laws have you broken? None? Not even jaywalking, speeding, or taking that tiny little candy bar that that big chain drugstore would never miss? Compare your motivations to King's in this regard.
2. Recall a time when you were faced with a decision from an authority figure that you considered to be unjust. What was the situation and what did you do about it? Did any part of that situation cross your mind during your reading? Are you thinking of the reading now?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. How are King's and Henry David Thoreau's ideas of civil disobedience similar? How are they different? Be sure to examine their views of laws and the individual's relationship to them.
2. King makes the statement that "groups are more immoral than individuals." Using your reading and your own ideas, explore this remark. What are some of the ways people act differently in groups than they would alone? How are these actions related to morality? Make sure you include a clear definition of "morality" in your writing.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Find the statement from the Alabama clergymen that prompted King's letter and study it. (It is readily available online.) Compare/contrast the tone of the two pieces. What do you make of the fact that King's letter is about fifteen times longer than the original statement?

WEB CONNECTION

If you'd like to put King's work into a historical context, you will want to know something about the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. To get you started here's a good general page about the Civil Rights Movement from The Encyclopedia Britannica.

LINKS

Biographical

Here's a start page from Stanford University, which includes links to papers, biographies, speeches, articles, and more. It's a great place to begin your online research.

Here's a King tribute page from Life Magazine, where you can gain access to both images and covers. How many covers feature King? Spanning what decades? What does this suggest?

This page has information about the King National Historical Site, located in Atlanta. What might you learn there that other biographical material doesn't pay much attention to?

Bibliographical

Here is a link to an excerpt from "I Have a Dream" in RealAudio. Try to read along if you can. What differs in your reading and Dr. King's? What do you make of the emphasis he places on certain words? What makes him a great speaker?

Here's King's speech "The Purpose of Education." Write a summary of the speech. What is the purpose of education put forth? Do you agree?

Still hungry for more of this author's work? Here is a page with lots of links to King in RealAudio.

Cultural

Click here for some info about the HBO movie Boycott. This film deals with the Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. Did you see it when it played recently? If you didn't, will you now that you know more about it?

In a related bit of information here's a photo of Rosa Parks being fingerprinted for refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery. Describe the photo in as much detail as you can. Why is this such a famous photo?