HomeQuotesMartin Luther King Jr.
Leadership
You suddenly find your tongue twisted... as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Leadership
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What this means, and why it matters to a father

Written April 16, 1963, from a Birmingham jail cell on the margins of a newspaper, King's letter is the most eloquent defense of nonviolent protest ever written. The Funtown passage is a father passage — the specific, heartbreaking moment of having to explain injustice to a child whose eyes haven't yet learned to hide pain.

There is more to this one. The full context — the events behind the words, what the author was living through, and how it applies to the specific situations of fatherhood — is in the app under Deeper Understanding.

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