RELIGION

Our Dire Need for “Creative Extremists” — MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

The relevancy of King’s words today

The following essay is adapted from my book, “Roadtripping at the End of the World” (Macska Moksha Press, 2019).

In the summer of 2018, while on a cross-country road trip, I stayed one night in a motel on the outskirts of Birmingham. Just being there brought to mind Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which I had heard of but never read. I was too tired to look it up that evening, but later I found a copy online and sat down with it. I was glad I did; though the text is nearly sixty years old, it expresses many lessons that are relevant today, especially for activists.

This famous piece of writing is exactly what it sounds like: correspondence penned by King while imprisoned. He was arrested on April 12, 1963 during his participation in the Birmingham Campaign.

The Birmingham Campaign had been launched nine days earlier, on April 3, by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). That day, they released the “Birmingham Manifesto” which began with the words:

The patience of an oppressed people cannot endure forever. The Negro citizens of Birmingham for the last several years…