Today in History: April 16, Martin Luther King Jr. writes ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Today in History: On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which the civil rights activist responded to a group of local clergymen who had criticized him for leading street protests; King defended his tactics, writing, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On this date: In 1789, President-elect George Washington left Mount Vernon, Virginia, for his inauguration in New York. In 1889, comedian and movie director Charles Chaplin was born in London. In 1945, a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea torpedoed and sank the ship the MV Goya, which Germany was using to transport civilian refugees and wounded soldiers; it’s estimated that up to 7,000 people died. In 1947, the cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate,& blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas; a nearby ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire and exploded the following day; the blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people. The post Today in History: April 16, Martin Luther King Jr. writes ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’ appeared first on The Sacramento Observer.