Non-violent direct action was a method of protest in the U.S.-American civil rights movement.Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, used it to contest segregation. In this article, I suggest thatKing’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963) deliberately confronts white moderates and aims tohighlight the violence against African Americans in the United States. In the letter, King claimsthat justice does not happen by itself and needs non-violent direct actions. In this respect, King’sapproach is not that different from Malcolm X’s, against which King is traditionally positioned. Tomake this case, I examine King’s perception of civil rights history, engage with the ideology ofcolorblindness and consider King’s non-violent philosophy. Subsequently, the article turns to theradicalism of King’s letter and argues that he saw white moderates as problematic in the strugglefor racial justice. Finally, I address King’s understanding of direct action, which stems from theconcept of civil disobedience. In doing so, this article also discusses similarities between King andother civil rights activists like Malcolm X and Mahatma Gandhi with regard to racial movementtactics. I conclude with a discussion of King’s philosophy of nonviolence as an immediate actionagainst violence. Ultimately, this article not only discards the idea of King being best understoodas a proponent of passiveness but also shows how intellectually active he was in combating racialinjustice.