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Unit 3: Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

Carmichael, the newly elected head of SNCC, who, during the Meredith March, suggested Notes
“Black Power” as a rallying cry for the movement. King and the SCLC refused to endorse the
slogan, fearing it would alienate white sympathy. For the time being, King and Carmichael
smoothed over their differences, but, in the fall, Carmichael, along with Bobby Seale, founded
the Black Panther Party, an overtly militant organization. Schisms widened over a disagreement
regarding who would speak at the march’s concluding rally.

King returned to Chicago in time for Freedom Sunday, at which he addressed a crowd of
45,000 and nailed a list of grievances to the door of City Hall. King urged the city, specifically
Chicago’s Mayor Daley, to spend more money on public schools, to integrate them, to build
low-rent housing, and to support African-American-run banks. Shortly after Freedom Sunday,
black youths rioted on Chicago’s West Side, leading to the deployment of the National Guard,
and suggesting just how limited was King’s influence over events in that city; in general, his
Chicago campaign was characterized by meagre returns on great investments. Chicago’s Operation
Breadbasket, led by Jesse Jackson and supported by King, met with only limited success in
creating new job opportunities for Chicago blacks. This metropolis of the North resisted tactics
that had succeeded in the cities of the South.
In addition to urban economic questions, King turned his attention to the Vietnam War. He
had spoken out against the war as early as in 1965, but, as it escalated, as it took an increasingly
disproportionate number of young black lives, and as it appeared more and more a war of
capitalists against peasants, King became bitterly vocal. On 4 April 1967 at New York’s Riverside
Church, King delivered his first sermon devoted entirely to the issue of Vietnam. On 15 April
he participated in the Spring Mobilization for Peace in New York, an anti-war protest unrelated
to the Civil Rights Movement.
King believed the war exported the same spirit of racism and economic exploitation under
which African Americans suffered at home. His attack on the Johnson Administration’s policies
was unequivocal, and angered Johnson, who felt that he had been loyal to King. King’s anti-
war stance also met with criticism from fellow civil rights leaders, who questioned the wisdom
of diverting much-needed attention away from the immediate concerns of African Americans.
The Vietnam War, as well as the conditions in the cities, led King to adopt a belief in a kind
of Christian socialism, and to concern himself with campaigns aimed at a redistribution of
American wealth. Late in 1967, King announced his plan to organise a Poor People’s March
on Washington for 22 April 1968. He envisioned a massive rally of the poor of all races,
intended to shut down the capital and not desist until adequate reforms were made. Although
a version of the event would in fact take place, King would not live to see it.

3.4 Assassination and Legacy

King’s interest in a strike of black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee in the spring of
1968 reflected his growing concern with economic issues. The workers wanted pay equal to
that of whites. Taking time out from planning sessions for the Poor People’s March, King flew
to Memphis on 28 March to participate in a rally of 6000 people. The presence of Black
Panthers in the crowd, however, and the violence they initiated, led King to remove himself
and his supporters from the march that day.
King went back to Atlanta briefly for SCLC work, but returned to Memphis in time for a
second march, which he hoped would be peaceful. King had stayed at the Holiday Inn during
his first visit, but, on account of criticism that those accommodations were lavish, and becuase
of security considerations, he checked into the Lorraine Motel in a black neighbourhood closer
to the protests.

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