A Watershed Text Resurfaces

On the night of April 12, 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sat in solitary confinement in an Alabama jail, following his arrest for leading a campaign of marches and sit-ins protesting racism and segregation. A friend had smuggled in that day’s newspaper, which had printed an open letter from eight white clergy members criticizing the demonstrations and King. 

King immediately began composing his response, first in the margins of the newspaper and then on other scraps of paper. It eventually became his seminal “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he urged Americans to take direct, nonviolent action in the fight for civil rights.

Other drafts of this manifesto, best known for the line “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” are preserved at institutions including the National Civil Rights Museum and the University of Alabama archives. But it was only this spring that a University of Maryland graduate student unexpectedly found another: at the Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS).

As part of his internship there, Nick Gentry MLIS ’26 was processing the collection of John Melville Burgess, who became the first African American to lead an Episcopal diocese when he was installed as the bishop of Massachusetts in 1970. Burgess had been active in the civil rights movement, but his collection largely contained photographs of his family and letters he wrote to fellow priests. Gentry initially thought he had landed on an unremarkable copy of King’s letter. 

But when he showed it to his supervisor, VTS’ Riley Temple, the pair realized that this was an original. 

“I was sort of terrified” by the magnitude of the discovery, said Gentry. “Riley said, ‘You can’t touch this anymore,’ and I was, like, ‘Yep, I don’t want to.’”

It’s not the first time Gentry has discovered a document of great historic significance. Last year, while working at James Madison’s Gunston Hall, he unearthed a never-before-digitized letter between Madison and George Washington.

“I don’t know if I’ve got the golden touch or something,” Gentry said.

Temple, the collection growth specialist for VTS’ African American Episcopal Historical Collection (AAEHC), and AAEHC staff spoke about the letter with civil rights leader Andrew Young, who had been a close confidant to King. Young had been there to witness the compilation of the text, which was written on numerous pieces of paper and then put together and typed by the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, cofounder with King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and his secretary, Willie Pearl Mackey. Mackey, who lives in Silver Spring and recently visited VTS to see the letter, recalls that she typed at least three versions for King. 

The letter was also verified by experts at Swann Galleries in New York City, which sold a different draft of the letter in 2021. In that version, King referred to “the Graeco-Roman world”; in the one found in Burgess’ collection, it’s written as “the Greco - Roman world.” 

The seminary will preserve the letter to prevent deterioration and intends to display it for public viewing.

“I never expected in my lifetime to be able to hold in my hand an initial draft of the iconic letter from a Birmingham jail,” said Temple, who as a young boy met King when he visited the theological school at Virginia Union University. “I lived through Jim Crow, through racial segregation. When I held the letter, not only did I scream, I wept.”