BookAges 16–18
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr. · 1963
CatholicAmerican
King's letter to white moderate clergy, drawing on Aquinas, Augustine, and Niebuhr. Required American reading.
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Related quotes from the canon
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963