05/28/2026
The African American Episcopal Historical Collection (AAEHC) has discovered an early draft of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic Letter from Birmingham Jail. The document was found in the papers of the late Bishop John M. and Esther Burgess, which were donated by their daughters to the AAEHC – a joint initiative between Virginia Theological Seminary and the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church.
Dr. King wrote the iconic letter on the margins of a copy of the New York Times, which was smuggled to him while he was imprisoned in Birmingham City Jail. He then gave the newspaper to one of his close advisors, Clarence Jones, who died last week, and asked him to arrange for it to be typed up. Because the letter was written in fragments, the sequence was not always clear, and different drafts went back and forth to Dr. King. The copy in the Burgesses’ papers is one of these early drafts.
Read more here: https://vts.edu/press-release/african-american-episcopal-historical-collection-discovers-early-draft-of-martin-luther-king-jr-s-letter-from-birmingham-jail/
