Remembering "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

by Randal Maurice Jelks

Martin Luther King in Birmingham Jail.Originally posted on the UNC Press Blog.When the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) staff received the handwritten “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and publicized it, the letter became almost instantly canonical. Long before the advent of social media, SCLC’s marketers swiftly put the letter before the wider public through the auspices of the Friends Service Committee, which initially wanted to title Martin Luther King Jr.’s missive “Tears of Love.” But the Reverend Wyatt T. Walker, SCLC’s chief strategist, insisted that it be titled in New Testament epistle fashion “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”