Birmingham Revisited

Martin Luther King, one of few winners of the Nobel Peace Prize to admit to even a single incarceration, marched off to jail last week for at least the 15th time. Garbed in his regular Bastille Day uniform--denim shirt, sweater and blue work pants--King flew from Atlanta to Birmingham, Ala., toting three books, the Bible, John Kenneth Galbraith's The New Industrial State, and William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner. He was whisked by sheriff's deputies to the Bessemer jail, about twelve miles from Birmingham in a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. "I am sad," he noted, "that the Supreme Court could not uphold the rights of individual citizens in the face of deliberate use of oppression."

King and three associates were jailed after the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to re-examine it's earlier 5 to 4 decision upholding their state court conviction for contempt. The charges stemmed from a Good Friday march in 1963, led by King against Birmingham's lunch-counter and rest-room segregation, despite a state court injunction forbidding demonstrations.

On his second day in jail, King fell ill with a virus, and was later transferred to a Birmingham jail equipped with better facilities. After four days, King was freed. "We don't want to work hardship on anybody," said Circuit Judge William C. Barber. "He's served enough time."

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