Letter from Birmingham Jail

by

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Letter from Birmingham Jail makes teaching easy.
Also known as the KKK, this extremist group maintains a platform of racial segregation, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism. They used violent means—including lynching—to oppose civil rights and racial equality in the 1950s and 60s. They were responsible for many of the bombings that Martin Luther King, Jr. mentions in his letter, but because many of their members held positions of power or had significant political connections, few were ever prosecuted.

Ku Klux Klan Quotes in Letter from Birmingham Jail

The Letter from Birmingham Jail quotes below are all either spoken by Ku Klux Klan or refer to Ku Klux Klan. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Racism  Theme Icon
).
Letter from Birmingham Jail Quotes

…the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice…

Related Characters: Martin Luther King, Jr. (speaker)
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Letter from Birmingham Jail LitChart as a printable PDF.
Letter from Birmingham Jail PDF

Ku Klux Klan Term Timeline in Letter from Birmingham Jail

The timeline below shows where the term Ku Klux Klan appears in Letter from Birmingham Jail. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Racism  Theme Icon
Justice  Theme Icon
...white moderate for his passive acceptance of racial inequality, calling him more dangerous than the Ku Klux Klan . The white moderate is dedicated to order over justice, while King and his fellow... (full context)