Letter from the Birmingham Jail  

This Research Guide was developed to accompany the speech at Marquette University given by Fr. Bryan Massingale on January 22, 2013, entitled "King's Birmingham City Jail Letter 50 Years Later."  The speech was part of the Freedom Project at Marquette commemmorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Boxes on this page:

• Academic Articles--Religious Journals
• Academic Articles--Literary, Cultural, and Communications Journals
• Academic Articles--History, Law, and Political Science Journals
• Academic Articles--Law Reviews
• Reenactment of Martin Luther King Writing the Letter
• Editions of the Letter
• Search Our Catalog
• Sample Books at MU
• Encyclopedia Entries
• Chicago Defender
• New York Times
• Chicago Tribune
• The Times (London)
• Archive of the MLK Center

ATLA Religion Database with ATLA Serials

Search on:   "Birmingham jail"

Project Muse

Search on:  "Birmingham jail"

JSTOR

Start with a smaller set by limiting your search to the title field.  Click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the first search window and select "item title."  Then enter:  "Birmingham jail".  If you want many more hits change the search to "full-text." 

Lexis Nexis Academic

In the column on the left select US Legal.  Under US Legal select Law Reviews.  In the first search window enter "Birmingham jail".  In the window to the right marked Everywhere click on the dropdown arrow and select At Least 5 Occurrences.  If you want more hits go back and select Everywhere, but you will get many irrelevant hits.

This video is a reenactment with Cory Jones acting as Martin Luther King, Jr. Directed by Ya'Ke Smith. Actor starts talking at 4:12 and it goes with the 48 paragraph letter word for word.  It was produced by the University of Texas's McComb School of Management.  Click on More Information on the top right of the screen.

Background on the writing of the letter from The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford.

The complete text from The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford.

An excerpted text from TeachingkAmericanHistory.org.

The letter from white clergy to which King responded. The reenactment in the box above also contains the letter from white clergy to which King reacted.

MARQCATplus, the Marquette Libraries catalog, lists books, journals, DVDs, videos, and CDs the library owns in print or electronic format.

More search options

Birmingham Campaign (1963) from the King Institute Encyclopedia (Stanford)

Martin Luther King Jr. from Britannica Online

Martin Luther King Jr. from American National Biography Online

Chicago Defender (1910-1975)

The Chicago Defender was a national black newspaper during most of the 20th century.

When you click on the above link you will land on the homepage of the Black Studies Center.  Under Keywords enter "Birmingham jail".  Under Publication Year enter 1963 to 1964.  Under Content Type uncheck all boxes except Newspapers.  Click on Search.

New York Times (1851-2001)

In the first search window enter "Birmingham jail".  Under Date Range select Specific Date Range, using the dropdown arrow to the right of the search box.  Enter March 1 to June 1, 1963.  Click on Search.

Chicago Tribune (1849-1986)

In the first search window enter "Birmingham jail".  Under Date Range select Specific Date Range, using the dropdown arrow to the right of the search box.  Enter March 1 to June 1, 1963.  Click on Search.

The Times (London) Digital Archive (1785-2006)

In the search window enter:  Birmingham Alabama.  Click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the window marked ALL.  Select Between.  Enter March 1 to June 1, 1963.

Click here for the archive.

This remarkable digital archive it contains thousands of documents that tell the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The visual interface for the site is most impressive: visitors can scan through the Spotlights area to look through topical collections that include Significant Cities, Vietnam, and Public Opinion.