Martin Luther King Jr. is jailed; writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

On April 3, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his Southern Christian Leadership Conference and their partners in the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights led a campaign of protests, marches and sit-ins against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. By April 12, King was in prison along with many of his fellow activists. While imprisoned, King penned an open letter now known as his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” a full-throated defense of the Birmingham protest campaign that is now regarded as one of the greatest texts of the civil rights movement.

On April 12, , King and dozens of his fellow protestors were arrested for continuing to demonstrate in the face of an injunction obtained by Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor. Connor, who had just lost the mayoral election, remains one of the most notorious pro-segregationists in American history thanks to the brutal methods his forces employed against the Birmingham protestors that summer. The man who had won the election, Albert Boutwell, was also a segregationist, and he was one of many who accused “outsiders”—he clearly meant King—of stirring up trouble in Birmingham. As he sat in a solitary jail cell without even a mattress to sleep on, King began to pen a response to his critics on some scraps of paper.  …read more

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Martin Luther King Jr. is jailed; writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

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HISTORY

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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-king-jr-writes-letter-from-a-birmingham-jail

Access Date

April 11, 2022

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 18, 2022

Original Published Date

January 12, 2021

When Yulanda Burgess first visited Tennessee’s Fort Pillow State Historic Park in 2006, she hoped to see where her great-grandfather Armstead Burgess, a member of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), was taken captive by Confederate soldiers on April 12, 1864. Burgess wanted to walk the same ground as her ancestor. Instead, she got lost.

The park’s trails were washed out by years of heavy rain and spotty maintenance. The few pathways that remained open were poorly marked, with faded paper signs in plastic sleeves nailed to the occasional tree. “That’s how it was before Robby Tidwell took charge,” Burgess says.

Tidwell, the Tennessee State Parks ranger who now manages the site, whacked weeds on Fort Pillow’s earthen fortifications when he was in high school. He found himself drawn to the fort, where one of the greatest tragedies of the Civil War took place—a battle that resulted in the deaths of almost 250 Union soldiers, the majority of whom were Black.

Source: smithsonianmag.com