Martin Luther King's “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as Pauline epistle

Abstract

Martin Luther King's “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is an apostolic epistle in the Pauline tradition. Following the conventions of black American Protestantism, King discovered in St. Paul a type for himself and in St. Paul's letters a literary form that he could apply to modern situations. Like the Pauline letters, King's “Letter” depends heavily on scriptual allusions and may be seen as not only a letter but also as a sermon.