Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was published in The Atlantic Monthly in April 1963. King states that the letter serves as a response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama--Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray, the Reverend Edward V. Ramage, and the Reverend Earl Stallings--who had criticized King for his actions in Birmingham and for having been arrested. In the course of his letter, King sets forth the primary goal as the achievement of human freedom for the black population:
We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny (www.netgaincc.com/sddemocrats/ltrbirm.html).
King is also clear about how this goal should be achieved, and in the letter he calls upon his critics to join him in the next demonstration, the next arrest, the next stint in jail. King's nonviolent approach was highly successful and would become the model for other movements. His larger goal of achieving human freedom for blacks has been only partly achieved, and while the nature of the problem today is somewhat different because of the successes King and others have achieved, the essential goal remains the same.
In the letter, King restates his belief in nonviolent demonstrations as a strategy of civil disobedience:
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. . . I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth (www.netgaincc.com).
King is direct about his immedi...