mlk-booking-photo

Published at 432 × 500 in Evening Prayer 1.16.17, Richard M. Benson & Charles Gore, Restored Monastic Life to Anglicanism
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested 30 times in his short life, most notably in Birmingham, where he wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail; but this is not that booking photo; that day he was wearing blue jeans and a casual shirt. We believe this may be the mug shot taken after his first arrest in 1955 for leading the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, a yearlong campaign that launched him to world prominence. Our search for the origin of this photo proved fruitless, except in illustrating how often it has been republished around the world. You’re looking at the best of America here; take hope from him.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested 30 times in his short life and treated as a criminal, much like Jesus. This is his booking photo in Birmingham, Alabama, where he passed the time writing his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, excoriating the Episcopal Bishop and other mainstream Christian leaders who said they favored civil rights, but these things take time; lots and lots of time. (Birmingham P.D.)

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.