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Quotation · A CLOSER LOOK

A single garment of destiny

Martin Luther King Jr. · Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

Color close-up portrait of Martin Luther King Jr

ABOUT THIS QUOTATION

A passage linking human interdependence to responsibility for injustice beyond one’s immediate community.

Selected passage

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

Martin Luther King Jr. · Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

A CLOSER LOOK

The story behind it.

A passage linking human interdependence to responsibility for injustice beyond one’s immediate community.

Interdependence made visible

King’s image of a single garment of destiny gives shared human circumstances a physical form: separate lives belong to something that connects them.

A phrase behind the larger project

The quotation resonates with the collection’s interest in threads among people, works, and experiences. That resonance is an editorial connection, not an automatically inferred relationship among every entry.

START HERE

Read the letter · University of Pennsylvania (opens in a new tab)

Source for A single garment of destiny: Read the letter · University of Pennsylvania.

Sources for this closer lookRead the letter · University of Pennsylvania (opens in a new tab)King Institute · Letter from Birmingham Jail (opens in a new tab)Background & references (opens in a new tab)

Explore the original.

Follow the original source to explore the work in its own context.

Read the letter · University of Pennsylvania (opens in a new tab)King Institute · Letter from Birmingham Jail (opens in a new tab)
Sources & credits

Introductions are grounded in the sources below. Collection notes and reading prompts provide an editorial starting point; personal opinions are identified in the collection’s content.

Color close-up portrait of Martin Luther King Jr

Marion S. Trikosko / Library of Congress · public domain

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