Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Last year, we took note of MLK day by watching King's "I have a dream" speech with the kids, stopping many, many times to see them through the questions. I am no expert in the history of civil rights, so I picked up Letter from a Birmingham Jail for the first time, and was floored.

It's quotable ("Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"), instructive ("In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action."), and contains rhetorical fire that befits a practiced preacher (See especially the arc of how '"Wait" has almost always meant "Never."'. It leads with a quote by Niebuhr, which feels safe and academic, and then swiftly moves to the gut-punch of "When you [...] see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky.")

This year, after a semester of practice with primary sources in homeschool, we decided to try reading a couple pages of the Letter to the kids. We got about 1/3 of the way through in half an hour while the kids quietly played Legos. (A common trick when getting through denser material, around here.)

Mr. 8 was curious how "there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered", and wanted to argue the point of the Niebuhr quote that "groups tend to be more immoral than individuals".

Mr. 6 insisted on vocabulary and context boosters: "lamentably", "cognizant", "Macedonian call for aid"

Mr. 2 spent the rest of the evening saying "ALabama", "AlaBAma", "AlabaMA".

All said they want to read more tonight.