Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Martin Luther King Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, And The Letters From Birmingham Jail; Author: Bass, S. Jonathan; Paperback

Author: Bass, S. Jonathan
Paperback; 15 Halftones
344 pages
Published: March 2002
Louisiana State University Press
ISBN: 0807128007

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. It 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 the first comprehensive history of King's Letter, this image and the piece's literary appeal coMartin Luther King Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail is arguably the most important written document of the civil rights protest era and has become part of American folklore. S. Jonathan Bass explains in this book, however, that the piece's appeal hides a much more complex tale.