Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To

Written on April 16, 1963, from a Birmingham, Alabama jail cell where Martin Luther King Jr. had been held since April 12 after leading a Good Friday demonstration. The letter was a response to an open letter signed by eight local white clergy who, while acknowledging injustice, argued that civil rights battles should be fought in courts rather than the streets. King wrote the 7,000-word response on newspaper margins, scraps of paper, and legal pads — it became one of the most important documents in American history, published in Christian Century, Ebony, and the New York Post.