In the spring of 1963 the Southern Christian Leadership Council, an organization led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, began a campaign for equal rights in what was then one of the most racially divided cities in America—Birmingham, Alabama. Boycotts and nonviolent demonstrations were organized throughout the city. Eugene “Bull” Conner, the chief of police, used fire hoses and police dogs on peaceful protesters, many of whom were either children or high school students. There were hundreds of arrests. On Good Friday, April 12, 1963, Dr. King was put behind bars for violating an injunction against public demonstrations. A few days before he was jailed, Dr. King read a statement from eight white clergymen, termed “A Call for Unity.” The group beseeched Dr. King to call off the demonstrations and give the courts time to work. As these largely sympathetic men of the cloth saw it, Dr. King’s direct action strategy was sure to spark violence and the loss of innocent lives. On April 16, Dr. King replied with his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In this, one of the most important documents of the Civil Rights movement, Dr. King contended that the fight for justice could no longer be put off. He insisted, “Justice too long deferred is justice denied.” Appealing to Augustine, Aquinas, and the natural law tradition, the reverend reasoned that laws that poison the soul, such as the segregation statutes, are false laws, and as such there is a higher law that calls us to disobey them, no matter what the cost.