In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail because he and
others were protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama. A
court had ordered that King could not hold protests in Birmingham.
Birmingham in 1963 was a hard place for blacks to live in. Everything was
segregated, from businesses to churches to libraries. Blacks faced constant
discrimination and the constant threat of violence.
To segregate is to separate from others. What this meant in Montgomery is
that blacks could only sit in certain places in restaurants, that they
could not go into certain businesses or that they could not use public rest
rooms that were for "whites only."
While King was in jail, he wrote a letter to the newspaper explaining why
he had broken the law. "I am here because injustice is here," he wrote. "I
would agree with Saint Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'"
Because black people had suffered injustice for so long, King believed they
should not have to wait any longer for change.
King believed nonviolence was essential for him as a man of God. He also
believed that violence would ruin the chances for change. King and others
were willing to go to jail for the cause of civil rights.