Letter from Birmingham Jail - community event with guest speaker

Overview

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Please join Square Books and the Oxford community on Saturday, January 17th at 5 PM at Off Square Books for a reading of "Letter From Birmingham Jail".

This year's reading will feature an introduction from award-winning journalist and writer, Deborah Douglas, author of the Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events that Made the Movement. She will sign copies of the book after the reading.

About the event

In 2017, Square Books honored the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a community reading of "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The letter, composed while King was in jail on April 16, 1963, came as a forceful theological and humane response to a group of Alabama clergy members who had openly criticized King for a perceived impatience during a crucial early period of the Civil Rights Movement. For the reading, more than thirty community members read a paragraph from the letter. It was a moving and unifying reading resulting in a sense of empowerment and solidarity. All in attendance were inspired, and we resolved to repeat the reading every year.

The letter is included in Reverend King's book, Why We Can't Wait. According to Square Books' Richard Howorth, "King began writing the letter in the margins of a newspaper in which the ministers' letter had appeared, and it is considered to be one of the great literary documents of American history. We are excited to help the community remember and celebrate the life of this great man."

About the guest speaker

Award-winning journalist Deborah D. Douglas is the founding director of the Medill Solutions Journalism Hub at Northwestern University, where she also serves as a faculty member. She is the founding co-editor-in-chief of The Emancipator, an award-winning digital platform that reimagines abolitionist newspapers, and has served on its advisory board. Her reporting and commentary have been featured in a wide array of publications such as The Guardian, Washington Post, Condé Nast Traveler, Afar magazine, Ms., ProPublica, Time, Borderless, The Boston Globe, American Prospect, Columbia Journalism Review, VICE News, USA Today, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Douglas is also among the 90 contributors to the New York Times bestselling Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. Douglas has been a longtime senior leader with The OpEd Project (OEP), dedicated to amplifying underrepresented expert voices in the public conversation. At the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, Douglas created a graduate investigative journalism capstone on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.