Letter From Birmingham Jail

“I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B. C. left their villages and carried their ‘thus saith the Lord’ far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my hometown.”

King's Christian faith was an essential part of his engagement with the Civil Rights Movement. In this quote, he explains that his involvement in the protests in Birmingham place him squarely in the tradition of Christians who went from place to place, some very far from the homes, to preach the gospel. King's gospel in this case is a social and political one that agitates for freedom.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with a narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” 

In this quote, King uses the concept of the interrelatedness of all communities to make the argument that supposed outsiders like King are actually insiders because inequality is a national issue. This argument is also designed to defend against a frequent accusation that segregationists made against activists, namely that they were outside agitators who had no business meddling in affairs in communities outside of their own.

“In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham.”

One of the criticisms to which King responds is that the Birmingham protests are untimely. In this quote, he counters this argument by arguing that the protests were simply the next logical step in the process. This quote is just one of many examples of King’s use of appeals to reason.