Words Written in the Margins

On April 12, 1963 — Good Friday — Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for leading nonviolent protests against segregation. Placed in solitary confinement, he was denied phone calls and cut off from the movement he had poured his life into. When a copy of the Birmingham News reached his cell, containing a statement from eight white clergymen urging him to abandon his campaign, King had no proper paper on which to respond.…