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Tension In Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Martin Luther King Jr' "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was written after he was arrested for exercising his constitutional rights while peacefully protesting in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. This Letter was written while Dr. King was in jail in one of the most segregated cities in America at the time. Birmingham was home to one of the most violent chapter of the KKK, their governor at the time, George Wallace, despised the idea of desegregation, and the law enforcement encourage the use of blunt force and brutality on African Americans protesters. In the letter Dr. King states that he was brought to Birmingham, along with other members of SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) to engage in a nonviolent direct action and take
Murray 2 time to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. He …show more content…

One of the more well-known church bombings happened on September 15, 1963. A home-made bomb was detonated in a church that had a predominately black demographic. Four young girls were killed, and many were injured by the explosion. This incident was followed by many clashes between law enforcement and protesters, it also brought national attention to the racial tension in the southern states. In 1963, Birmingham was approaching a mayoral election between Eugene "Bull" Connor and Albert Boutwell. Although Connor was defeated by Boutwell, the odds were still against African Americans because Boutwell was a supporter of segregation, but he wasn't as extreme as Eugene Connor. When Dr. King says, "When you see a vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society" he's referring to how African Americans struggled to find jobs, make money, or even go to school due to the high level of racial tension. In Wayne Flynt's, "Poverty in Alabama" he talks about the census done in 1960 where "28 of Alabama's 67 counties had poverty

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