Letter from Birmingham City Jail.

Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, [1963]. Second printing. 9 x 6 inches. 15,[1]pp including wrappers. Stapled white self-wrappers printed in grey. Faint dampstain near spine foot and to gutter of outside leaves; light wear to edges; vertical crease throughout. About Very Good.

The second printing of this edition, issued in June 1963 and with the corresponding notation printed on back cover, "No. 589A -- 30M -- 6-63 -- G.B. / First Printed 5-63 -- 50M"; this edition, known as the first separate edition, was preceded by the much scarcer mimeographed edition.

Written in April, 1963, while King was incarcerated and in solitary confinement for leading nonviolent protests in Birmingham against the city's segregationist policies, the letter quickly became a major text of the Civil Rights movement. It refutes the position of eight of the city's white clergymen, who together penned an open letter published in the local newspaper, titled "A Call for Unity," in which they argued that Civil Rights activists should cease their "unwise and untimely" demonstrations and instead seek to achieve their aims through negotation and the courts. In his response, King immediately addresses these arguments in his letter, including his role as a perceived "outside agitator," and lays out the four steps of nonviolent campaigns. As he notes, in now famous words, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable netword of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.... We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.'"

A seminal text of the Civil Rights movement that remains important today.