“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
In April 1963, while participating in a peaceful anti-segregation march in Birmingham, Alabama, King was arrested on the grounds that he did not have a parade permit. While in solitary confinement in the Birmingham City Jail, he wrote an open letter that was published on April 16, 1963.
In his letter, King addressed criticisms of his civil rights activism and emphasized that equality was not something that would eventually come along if everyone would just wait. He wrote, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
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