Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from Birmingham Jail is arguably the most important written document of the civil rights protest era and a widely read modern literary classic. Personally addressed to eight white Birmingham clergymen who sought to avoid violence by publicly discouraging King’s civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, the nationally published Letter captured the essence of the struggle for racial equality and provided a blistering critique of the gradualist approach to racial justice. The Letter soon became part of American folklore, and the image of King penning his epistle from a prison cell remains among the most moving of the era. Yet, as S. Jonathan Bass explains in this comprehensive history of the piece, this image and the letter’s literary appeal conceal a much more complex tale.