<P> The letter, written during the 1963 Birmingham campaign, was widely published, and became an important text for the American Civil Rights Movement . </P> <P> The Birmingham campaign began on April 3, 1963, with coordinated marches and sit - ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama . The nonviolent campaign was coordinated by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). On April 10, Circuit Judge W.A. Jenkins issued a blanket injunction against "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing ." Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling . On April 12, King was roughly arrested with SCLC activist Ralph Abernathy, ACMHR and SCLC official Fred Shuttlesworth and other marchers, while thousands of African Americans dressed for Good Friday looked on . </P> <P> King was met with unusually harsh conditions in the Birmingham jail . An ally smuggled in a newspaper from April 12, which contained A Call for Unity, a statement by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods . The letter provoked King, and he began to write a response on the newspaper itself . King writes in Why We Can't Wait: "Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly black trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me ." </P> <P> The letter responded to several criticisms made by the "A Call for Unity" clergymen, who agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not the streets . As a minister, King responded to these criticisms on religious grounds . As an activist challenging an entrenched social system, he argued on legal, political, and historical grounds . As an African American, he spoke of the country's oppression of black people, including himself . As an orator, he used many persuasive techniques to reach the hearts and minds of his audience . Altogether, King's letter was a powerful defense of the motivations, tactics, and goals of the Birmingham campaign and the Civil Rights Movement more generally . </P>

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