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rug

(82,333 posts)
Tue Apr 16, 2013, 09:26 AM Apr 2013

Religious leaders mark 50th anniversary of famed King letter from jail

Apr-15-2013
By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Fifty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. took a group of white Alabama clergymen to task for suggesting he find ways, other than demonstrations and protests, to seek racial equality.

The civil rights leader did not mince words telling the group that included Protestant pastors, a rabbi and a Catholic bishop -- Auxiliary Bishop Joseph A. Durick of what was then the Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham, Ala. -- that he was "disappointed with the church."

In their public letter to Rev. King, published in an April 13, 1963, newspaper, the religious leaders urged him to negotiate and wait for court actions and described the civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham as "unwise and untimely."

Rev. King, held in solitary confinement for eight days for violating the city's ban on civil rights demonstrations, began his response to the clergymen April 16, the fourth day of his prison sentence. He used a pencil to write on margins of a newspaper and slips of paper, and he only wrote during the day since his cell had no overhead light.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1301693.htm

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Religious leaders mark 50th anniversary of famed King letter from jail (Original Post) rug Apr 2013 OP
A link to the full letter. Jim__ Apr 2013 #1
Thanks for the full text. rug Apr 2013 #2

Jim__

(14,045 posts)
1. A link to the full letter.
Tue Apr 16, 2013, 09:35 AM
Apr 2013
An excerpt:


Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. 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 the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
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