"A Call for Unity" was an open letter published in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 12, 1963, by eight local white clergymen in response to American civil rights movement, civil rights Birmingham campaign, demonstrations taking place in the area at the time. In the letter, they took issue with events "directed and led in part by outsiders," and they urged activists to engage in local negotiations and to use the courts if rights were being denied, rather than to protest. The term "outsider" was a thinly-veiled reference to Martin Luther King Jr., who replied four days later, with his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He argued that direct action was necessary to protest unjust laws. The authors of "A Call for Unity" had written "An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense" in January 1963.

Signatories

* Charles Carpenter (bishop), C. C. J. Carpenter, D.D., LL.D., Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama * Joseph Aloysius Durick, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile, Catholic Diocese of Mobile, Birmingham * Milton Grafman, Milton L. Grafman, Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El (Birmingham, Alabama), Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, Alabama * Paul Hardin, Jr., Paul Hardin, Bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the Methodist Church (USA), Methodist Church * Nolan Bailey Harmon, Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church * George M. Murray (bishop), George M. Murray, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama * Edward V. Ramage, Moderator, Synod of the Alabama Presbyterian Church in the United States * Earl Stallings, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama

References

* Bass, S. Jonathan (2001). ''Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail"''. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. .

External links

*
"Letter from Birmingham Jail"
as PDF and audio version History of Alabama United States documents 1963 documents Open letters 1963 in Alabama {{civil-rights-movement-stub