A.P.F. Raise Some Dough Event / Letter From Birmingham Jail 50th Anniversary

By Nathan Young on April 16, 2013

Alabama Phoenix Festival Raise Some Dough Event at Slice Pizza & Brew

Tonight, the Alabama Phoenix Festival is hosting a special event to raise money for Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund, Inc. You will also get a chance to learn what will be in the Alabama Phoenix Festival this year which takes place on Memorial Day weekend in Birmingham.

This event takes place at Slice Pizza & Brew in Birmingham on Tuesday April 16th. 10% of proceeds on Tuesday will be given to The Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund on behalf of the Alabama Phoenix Festival. You will get to see some costumed characters and some LEGO creations. You will also get to learn all the cool guests and activities that will be at the Alabama Phoenix Festival this year! Best of all, you will be helping The Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund, which provides financial and educational assistance to surviving U.S. Military children and spouses affected by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

Also wanted to mention this, Birmingham Mountain Radio’s show Oh Brother Radio will be live at Iron City Bham every Thursday night from 7-9 pm. Every Thursday until Memorial Day Weekend, the radio team will choose the best dressed in costume to win a pair of passes to APF 2013! I guess I need to find out how I can get on their show.

Learn more about the Alabama Phoenix Festival at: http://www.alabamaphoenixfestival.com/

Learn more about the The Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund at: http://www.childrenoffallensoldiersrelieffund.org/

Learn more about Birmingham Mountain Radio at: http://www.bhammountainradio.com/

Letter From Birmingham Jail 50th Anniversary

Today is a big day in the history of Birmingham, Alabama. On April 16th, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the now famous Letter From The Birmingham Jail while he was behind bars. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism, arguing that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws.

Here’s a little history behind this letter. On April 10, 1963, 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, 1963, King was roughly arrested with Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and other marchers—while thousands of African Americans dressed for Good Friday looked on.

King was met with unusually harsh conditions in the Birmingham jail. An ally smuggled in a newspaper from April 12, 1963, which contained “A Call for Unity”: a statement made 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.”

The letter was published in publications such as the New York Post Sunday Magazine, Liberation, The Christian Century, The New Leader, The Atlantic Monthly, and in King’s book “Why We Can’t Wait.” Alabama has made huge strides since the 1960’s in the terms of racism and segregation. This is a moment of history we can never forget!

Read the entire letter at: https://keepnotes.com/stanford-university/polisci-1-the-science-of-politics/29927-martin-luther-king-jr-institute-legacy-retold

Watch this video with Dr. King’s voice reading some of his letter below.