Dansite Reading Journal

Light blue book cover with bold black text reading "Martin Luther King, Jr." and "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Penguin Modern Classics logo at top.
Letter From Birmingham Jail
Read April 26, 2026

Publication Details

Type: Book
Publisher: Penguin Modern
Published: 1963

Reading Details

Pages: 51
Location: Lawrence, Kassas (US)

Highlights

First Paragraph:

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities 'unwise and untimely.'

Notes/Quotes

There is a succinct and elegant definition of the meaning of justice and 'just laws' in this letter.

...An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law...


This volume also contains a sermon entitled, Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.