Historical, Social and Cultural Significance of the Letter from Birmingham Jail

The Birmingham Letter
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The Birmingham Letter
The Letter from Birmingham Jail is one that has subtle historical, social and cultural significance to the civil rights movement in American and the rights of the blacks. This is a letter that King wrote while he was incarcerated in a Birmingham, Alabama jail after he had been roughed up on the streets. King was an American Baptist Minister and an activist for the African American rights. He was a world renowned civil rights activist who pushed for the rights of the African Americans, given the elements of the injustices that were advanced to the Africans even after the end slavery.
At the time, African Americans were actively involved in the fight for the rights to be recognized as citizens and more importantly to be accorded equality among the whites. As King states in the letter, Alabama at the time was the worst hit by the level of injustices that were meted against the Africans for demonstrating. Before King would be arrested, he had come to Alabama after a call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program (King, 1963). Alabama had been experiencing some of the worst incidences of bombings on their homes and several churches, all of which had not been solved. As such, the call for direct action was relative to the fact that, most of the cases that had been taken to court had not been solved. The civil rights movement among other supporters took to the streets to demand that there be some form of negotiations (Ali-Dinar, n.d.).
In the context of the letter, it is clear that the African Americans had tried negotiations which had not worked. All of the cases that had been taken to court would...