and Abednego

Editor 's Note: From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned for a nonviolent demonstration against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in longhand this letter to respond to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South. King, who was born in 1929, did his undergraduate work at Morehouse College and attended the integrated Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he was one of six black pupils among 100 students,