The charge was Parading Without a Permit, which carried a five-day jail sentence. The City of Birmingham” before the Supreme Court, 5-4. Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and several others, surrendered to the Birmingham authorities after the Legal Defense Educational Fund of the NAACP lost “Wyatt Tee Walker vs. These two, along with Reverend’s Ralph D. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker are shown in the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham Alabama in October of 1967. The Birmingham Portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. Below, Walker’s son, Wyatt “Jay” Jr., relays the story behind the photos - one of which is the only photo in public circulation known to be taken by Dr. Walker smuggled a small camera into the jail, which he and King used to shoot the iconic portraits of themselves pictured above.Īfter a lengthy legal battle, Walker’s wife Theresa Ann was able to secure the copyright for the two photos in January 2020, on the two-year anniversary of her husband’s death. In 1967, four years after their triumph in Birmingham - which was instrumental in the desegregation of not only that city, but the entire United States - King and Walker returned to Birmingham to surrender themselves after being found guilty of “Parading Without a Permit,” charges leveled for their nonviolent protests years earlier.

King’s field general throughout the history-altering Birmingham Campaign (including in Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants), where his ambitious activism helped defeat the violent tyranny of segregationist Bull Connor.

Wyatt Tee Walker served as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s chief strategist and executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during key days of the Civil Rights movement.

Martin luther king birmingham jail