MLK Letter to One of His Closest Allies in the Fight for Civil Rights
On July 31, 1963, just weeks before the March on Washington and Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, King wrote this letter to Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of Atlanta's Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, known as The Temple. The two men had developed a genuine personal friendship, not merely a political alliance. When King wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail" following his April 1963 arrest, Rothschild was among the first to respond, writing that it was "without question the most moving and significant document I have yet read." This letter, written just weeks later, exists at the height of that relationship and at one of the most pivotal moments in American history.
Rabbi Rothschild was one of the most consequential behind-the-scenes figures of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. He had openly denounced segregation from the pulpit as early as 1947, helped draft Atlanta's landmark Ministers' Manifesto in 1957, and paid a price for it when white supremacists bombed The Temple in 1958. Unbowed, he only intensified his work. In January 1965, Rothschild organized and served as master of ceremonies for the dinner honoring King's Nobel Peace Prize — a gathering of over 1,400 people, both Black and white, at Atlanta's Dinkler Hotel, the first and largest biracial gathering in the city's history at the time. A photograph from that dinner, showing Rothschild presenting King with a commemorative bowl, is today on permanent display at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. After King's assassination in 1968, it was Rothschild who delivered the eulogy at the city-wide memorial service. Coretta Scott King later called him "a true neighbor" who would "risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others." This letter, written at the center of their friendship and the movement itself, connects directly to all of it.
This letter almost didn't survive to tell that story. It came off the desk of Rothschild's secretary, my great grandmother, who was told to throw it out during an office clean-out. She kept it instead, and even marked "Rabbi Social Action" in the top left corner, filing it under the very work the letter itself was part of.
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