From the Birmingham, Alabama jail (also known as the Jefferson County jail), where he was imprisioned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations against racial segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in longhand the copyrighted letter which was reproduced at this link. It was his response to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South. Dr. King, who was born in 1929: did his undergraduate work at Morehouse College; attended the racially integrated Cromer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of six black pupils among a hundred students and the president of his class; and won a fellowship to Boston University for his Ph.D.