Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Professor Jonathan Bass talked about the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s April 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He wrote in response to a letter from eight white ministers published in a newspaper while the Reverend King was in jailed after a protest march. Professor Bass talked about the background events as well as the story of the “letter” itself. He was interviewed at the replica in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s jail cell.

C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles (LCVs) made a stop in their “2011 LCV Cities Tour” in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 31-November 4 to feature the history and literary life of the community. Working with the Bright House Networks local cable affiliate, they visited literary and historic sites where local historians, authors, and civic leaders were interviewed. The history segments air on American History TV (AHTV) on C-SPAN3 and the literary events/non-fiction author segments air on BookTV on C-SPAN2. close