In April 1963 King joined with Birmingham, Alabama’s existing local movement, in a massive direct action campaign to attack the city’s segregation system by putting pressure on Birmingham’s merchants. The campaign was originally scheduled to begin in early March 1963, but was postponed until 2 April when the relatively moderate Albert Boutwell defeated Birmingham’s segregationist commissioner of public safety, “Bull” Conner, in a run-off mayoral election. On 3 April the desegregation campaign was launched with a series of mass meetings, direct actions, lunch counter sit ins, marches on City Hall, and a boycott of downtown merchants. King spoke tothe black citizens about the theory of Non-Violence and its methods, and extended appeals for volunteers at the end of the mass meetings. With the number of volunteers increasing daily, actions soon expanded to kneel-ins at churches, sit-ins at the library, and a march on the county building to register voters. Hundreds were arrested. On 10 April the city government obtained a state circuit court injunction against the protests. After heavy debate, campaign leaders decided to disobey the court order. King stated, ‘‘we cannot in all good conscience obey such an injunction which is an unjust, undemocratic and unconstitutional misuse of the legal process’’ On Good Friday, 12 April, King was arrested in Birmingham after violating the anti-protest injunction and was kept in solitary confinement. During this time King penned the famous “letter from Birmingham jail” on the margins of a newspaper. It was in reaction to a statement published in that newspaper by eight Birmingham clergymen condemning the protests. There was a consistent didactic tone in Martins voice while he expressed the way his people felt each and every day. Trying to constantly open the eyes of those in authority to show that what they were doing was absurd and wrong. City officials continued to make promises they purposely didn’t fulfill. Martin expressed it as being “victims of a broken promise”; wherefore he believed it was time to take full and direct action, so a crisis situation of non-violence movements will inevitably open the door to negotiation. “impatience” on the part of the African American community and of the “extreme” level of the campaign’s actions ;time is very important ,king feels as if they wasted enough time and it’s time to take further action, “As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many experiences of the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action…” the significance of the word “here” is the reflection of why Dr. king resides in Birmingham jail in the first place, ”Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here………….Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. Dr. King expresses his presence and the conviction of change they want to oppose on all people with the significant of the word” here”. However, lastly the significance of the word wait is symbolic to broken promises and the time that has passed with failed progress. “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!” King wrote. “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’”. He articulated the resentment felt “when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodyness’— then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait”….. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was & quote ;well timed & quote; according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation” Therefore throughout the letter the words time, here, and wait all play a role to each other.
