"Are you able to
accept blows without retaliating?"
"Are you able to
endure the ordeal of jail?"
"Nonviolent direct
action seeks to create . . . a crisis . . . that a community which has
constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue."
"Freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed."
"Justice too long
delayed is Justice denied."
"An ordinance
becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny
citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and
protest."
"I am grateful to
God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of
nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle."
"If this
philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am
convinced, be flowing with blood."
"If his repressed
emotions
are not released in
nonviolent ways,
they will seek
expression
through
violence;
this is
not a threat
but a fact of history."
"This normal and
healthy
discontent
can be channeled into
the creative outlet of
nonviolent
direct
action."
*
* * *
16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow
Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent
statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely."
Seldom do I pause to
answer criticism of my work and ideas.
If I sought to answer
all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little
time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day,
and I would have no time for constructive work.
But since I feel that
you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely
set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be
patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should
indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by
the view which argues against "outsiders coming in."
I have the honor of
serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an
organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in
Atlanta, Georgia.
We have some eighty
five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.
Frequently we share
staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates.
Several months ago the
affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a
nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary.
We readily consented,
and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with
several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here
because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I
am in Birmingham because injustice is here.
Just as the prophets of
the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus
saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns,
and just as the Apostle
Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to
the far corners of the Greco Roman world,
so am I compelled to
carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.
Like Paul, I must
constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am
cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot
sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in
Birmingham.
Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Never again can we
afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator"
idea.
Anyone who lives inside
the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its
bounds.
You deplore the
demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry
to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought
about the demonstrations.
I am sure that none of
you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social
analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with
underlying causes.
It is unfortunate that
demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more
unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community
with no alternative.
In any nonviolent
campaign there are four basic steps:
collection of the facts
to determine whether injustices exist;
negotiation;
self purification; and
direct action.
We have gone through
all these steps in Birmingham.
There can be no
gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community.
Birmingham is probably
the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.
Its ugly record of
brutality is widely known.
Negroes have
experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts.
There have been more
unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any
other city in the nation.
These are the hard,
brutal facts of the case.
On the basis of these
conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But
the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then, last September,
came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic
community.
In the course of the
negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to
remove the stores' humiliating racial signs.
On the basis of these
promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all
demonstrations.
As the weeks and months
went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise.
A few signs, briefly
removed, returned; the others remained.
As in so many past
experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep
disappointment settled upon us.
We had no alternative
except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very
bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local
and the national community.
Mindful of the
difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self
purification.
We began a series of
workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves:
"Are you able to
accept blows without retaliating?"
"Are you
able to endure the ordeal of jail?
We decided to schedule
our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for
Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year.
Knowing that a strong
economic-withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we
felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the
merchants for the needed change.
Then it occurred to us
that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily
decided to postpone action until after election day.
When we discovered that
the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had
piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone
action until the day after the run off
so that the
demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues.
Like many others, we
waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement
after postponement.
Having aided in this
community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no
longer.
You may well ask:
"Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't
negotiation a better path?"
You are quite right in
calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct
action.
Nonviolent direct
action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a
community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront
the issue.
It seeks so to
dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.
My citing the creation
of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather
shocking.
But I must confess that
I am not afraid of the word "tension."
I have earnestly
opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent
tension which is necessary for growth.
Just as Socrates felt
that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals
could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered
realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal,
so must we see the need
for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will
help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice
and racism to the majestic
heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of our
direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it
will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
I therefore concur with
you in your call for negotiation.
Too long has our
beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue
rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points
in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken
in Birmingham is untimely.
Some have asked:
"Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?"
The only answer that I
can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be
prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act.
We are sadly mistaken
if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the
millennium to Birmingham.
While Mr. Boutwell is a
much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists,
dedicated to maintenance of the status quo.
I have hope that Mr.
Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive
resistance to desegregation.
But he will not see
this without pressure from devotees of civil rights.
My friends, I must say
to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without
determined legal and nonviolent pressure.
Lamentably, it is an
historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges
voluntarily.
Individuals may see the
moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture;
but, as Reinhold
Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful
experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it
must be demanded by the oppressed.
Frankly, I have yet to
engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the
view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of
segregation.
For years now I have
heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with
piercing familiarity.
This "Wait" has almost always meant
"Never."
We must come to see,
with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed
is justice denied."
We have waited for more
than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.
The nations of Asia and
Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political
independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a
cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
Perhaps it is easy for
those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say,
"Wait."
But when you have seen
vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters
and brothers at whim;
when you have seen hate
filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and
sisters;
when you see the vast
majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight
cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
when you suddenly find
your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to
your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park
that has just been advertised on television,
and see tears welling
up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored
children,
and see ominous clouds
of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky,
and see her beginning
to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward
white people;
when you have to
concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking:
"Daddy, why do
white people treat colored people so mean?";
when you take a cross
county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the
uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you;
when you are humiliated
day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and
"colored";
when your first name
becomes "nigger,"
your middle name
becomes "boy" (however old you are)
and your last name
becomes "John,"
and your wife and
mother are never given the respected title "Mrs.";
when you are harried by
day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro,
living constantly at
tiptoe stance,
never quite knowing
what to expect next,
and are plagued with
inner fears and outer resentments;
when you are forever
fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--
then you will
understand why we find it difficult to wait.
There comes a time when
the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be
plunged into the abyss of despair.
I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
You express a great
deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws.
This is certainly a
legitimate concern.
Since we so diligently
urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing
segregation in the public schools,
at first glance it may
seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws.
One may well ask:
"How can you
advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?"
The answer lies in the
fact that there are
two types of laws:
just
and
unjust.
I would be the
first to advocate obeying just laws.
One has not only a
legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a
moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
I would agree with St.
Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the
difference between the two?
How does one determine
whether a law is just or unjust?
A just law is a man
made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.
An unjust law is a code
that is out of harmony with the moral law.
To put it in the terms
of St. Thomas Aquinas:
An unjust law is a
human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
Any law that uplifts
human personality is just.
Any law that degrades
human personality is unjust.
All segregation
statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the
personality.
It gives the segregator
a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority.
Segregation, to use the
terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I
it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up
relegating persons to the status of things.
Hence segregation is
not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is
morally wrong and sinful.
Paul Tillich has said
that sin is separation.
Is not segregation an
existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement,
his terrible sinfulness?
Thus it is that I can
urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally
right;
and I can urge them to
disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more
concrete example of just and unjust laws.
An unjust law is a code
that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey
but does not make binding on itself.
This is difference made
legal.
By the same token, a
just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that
it is willing to follow itself.
This is sameness made
legal.
Let me give another
explanation.
A law is unjust if it
is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to
vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.
Who can say that the
legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was
democratically elected?
Throughout Alabama all
sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming
registered voters,
and there are some
counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the
population, not a single Negro is registered.
Can any law enacted
under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
Sometimes a law is just
on its face and unjust in its application.
For instance, I have
been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit.
Now, there is nothing
wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade.
But such an ordinance
becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny
citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to
see the distinction I am trying to point out.
In no sense do I
advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist.
That would lead to anarchy.
One who breaks an
unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept
the penalty.
I submit that an
individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust,
and who willingly
accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of
the community over its injustice,
is in reality
expressing the highest respect for law.
Of course, there is
nothing new about this kind of
civil disobedience.
It was evidenced
sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the
laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at
stake.
It was practiced
superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions
and the excruciating
pain of chopping blocks
rather than submit to
certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.
To a degree, academic
freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.
In our own nation, the
Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget
that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany
was "legal"
and everything the
Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary
was
"illegal."
It was
"illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany.
Even so, I am sure
that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted
my Jewish brothers.
If today I lived in a
Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are
suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's
antireligious laws.
I must make two honest
confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers.
First,
I must confess that
over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white
moderate.
I have almost reached
the regrettable conclusion
that the Negro's great
stumbling block in his stride toward freedom
is not the
White Citizen's
Counciler
or the
Ku Klux Klanner,
but the white moderate,
who is more devoted to
"order"
than
to
justice;
who prefers a negative
peace
which is the absence of
tension
to a positive peace
which is the presence
of
justice;
who constantly says:
"I agree with you
in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct
action";
who paternalistically
believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom;
who lives by a mythical
concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a
"more convenient season."
Shallow understanding
from people of good will
is more frustrating
than absolute
misunderstanding
from people of ill
will.
Lukewarm
acceptance
is much more
bewildering
than outright
rejection.
I had hoped that the
white moderate would understand
that law and order
exist
for the purpose of
establishing justice
and that when they
fail
in this purpose
they become the
dangerously structured dams
that block the flow of
social progress.
I had hoped that the
white moderate
would understand
that the present
tension
in the South
is a necessary phase
of the transition
from an obnoxious
negative
peace,
in which the Negro
passively
accepted
his unjust plight,
to a substantive
and
positive peace,
in which all men
will respect the
dignity and worth
of human personality.
Actually, we who engage
in
nonviolent
direct action
are not the creators of
tension.
We merely bring to the
surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
We bring it out in the
open,
where it can be seen
and dealt with.
Like a boil that can
never be cured so long as it is covered up
but must be opened with
all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,
injustice must be
exposed,
with all the tension
its exposure creates,
to the light of human
conscience
and the air of national
opinion
before it can be cured.
In your statement
you assert that our
actions,
even though peaceful,
must be condemned
because they
precipitate violence.
But is this a logical
assertion?
Isn't this like
condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the
evil act of robbery?
Isn't this like
condemning
Socrates
because his unswerving
commitment to
truth
and his philosophical
inquiries
precipitated the act
by the misguided
populace
in which they
made him drink
hemlock?
Isn't this like
condemning
Jesus
because his unique
God consciousness
and never ceasing
devotion
to God's will
precipitated the
evil act of
crucifixion?
We must come to see
that,
as the federal courts
have consistently
affirmed,
it is wrong to urge an
individual
to cease his efforts
to gain his basic
constitutional rights
because the quest
may precipitate
violence.
Society must protect
the
robbed
and punish the
robber.
I had also hoped
that the white moderate
would reject the myth
concerning time
in relation to the
struggle for freedom.
I have just
received a letter
from a white brother in
Texas.
He writes:
"All Christians
know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it
is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry.
It has taken
Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has.
The teachings of Christ
take time to come to earth."
Such an attitude stems
from a tragic misconception of time,
from the strangely
irrational notion
that there is something
in the
very flow of time
that will inevitably
cure all ills.
Actually, time itself
is neutral;
it can be used either
destructively
or
constructively.
More and more I feel
that the
people of ill will
have used time
much more effectively
than have the
people of good will.
We will have to repent
in this generation
not merely for the
hateful words
and actions
of the bad people
but for the appalling
silence
of the good people.
Human progress never
rolls in on wheels of inevitability;
it comes through the
tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God,
and without this hard
work,
time itself
becomes
an ally of the
forces of social
stagnation.
We must use time
creatively,
in the knowledge
that the time is always
ripe to do right.
Now is the time to make
real the promise
of
democracy
and
transform
our pending national
elegy
into a creative psalm
of brotherhood.
Now is the time to lift
our
national policy
from the quicksand of
racial injustice
to the
solid rock of
human dignity.
You speak of our
activity in Birmingham as extreme.
At first I was rather
disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as
those of an extremist.
I began thinking about
the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro
community.
One is a force of
complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of
oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of
"somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation;
and in part of a few
middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic
security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become
insensitive to the problems of the masses.
The other force is one
of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating
violence.
It is expressed in the
various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation,
the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement.
Nourished by the
Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination,
this movement is made up of people
who have lost faith in
America,
who have absolutely
repudiated Christianity,
and who have concluded
that the white man is
an
incorrigible
"devil."
I have tried to stand
between these two forces,
saying that we need
emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the
hatred and despair of the black nationalist.
For there is the more
excellent way of
love and nonviolent
protest.
I am grateful to God
that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence
became an integral part of our struggle.
If this philosophy had
not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be
flowing with blood.
And I am further
convinced that if our white brothers
dismiss as "rabble
rousers" and "outside agitators"
those of us who employ
nonviolent direct action,
and if they refuse to
support our nonviolent efforts,
millions of Negroes
will,
out of frustration and
despair,
seek solace and
security in black nationalist ideologies -- a development that would
inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot
remain oppressed forever.
The yearning for
freedom eventually manifests itself,
and that is what has
happened to the American Negro.
Something within has
reminded him of his birthright of freedom,
and something without
has reminded him that it can be gained.
Consciously or
unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist,
and with his black
brothers of Africa
and his brown and
yellow brothers of Asia,
South America
and the Caribbean,
the United States Negro
is moving with a sense of great urgency
toward the promised
land of racial justice.
If one recognizes this
vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community,
one should readily
understand why public demonstrations are taking place.
The Negro has many pent
up
resentments
and latent
frustrations,
and he must release
them.
So let him march;
let him make
prayer pilgrimages
to the city hall;
let him go on freedom
rides --
and try to understand
why he must do so.
If his repressed
emotions
are not released in
nonviolent ways,
they will seek
expression
through violence;
this is not a threat
but a fact of history.
So I have not said to
my people:
"Get rid of your
discontent."
Rather, I have tried to
say
that this normal and
healthy
discontent
can be channeled into
the creative outlet of
nonviolent direct
action.
And now this approach
is being termed extremist.
But though I was
initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist,
as I continued to think
about the matter
I gradually gained a
measure of satisfaction
from the label.
Was not Jesus an
extremist for love:
"Love your
enemies,
bless them that curse
you,
do good to them that
hate you,
and pray for them
which despitefully
use you,
and
persecute you."
Was not Amos an
extremist
for justice:
"Let justice roll
down like waters
and righteousness like
an ever
flowing stream."
Was not Paul an
extremist
for the Christian
gospel:
"I bear in my body
the marks of the Lord Jesus."
Was not Martin Luther
an extremist:
"Here I stand; I
cannot do otherwise, so help me God."
And John Bunyan:
"I will stay in
jail
to the end of my days
before I make a
butchery
of my
conscience."
And Abraham Lincoln:
"This nation
cannot survive
half slave
and
half free."
And Thomas Jefferson:
"We hold these
truths to be
self evident,
that all men are
created equal . .
."
So the question is not
whether we will be extremists,
but what kind of
extremists we will be.
Will we be extremists
for
hate
or
for love?
Will we be extremists
for the preservation of
injustice
or
for the extension of
justice?
In that dramatic scene
on
Calvary's hill
three men were
crucified.
We must never forget
that
all three were
crucified
for the same crime --
the crime of extremism.
Two were extremists
for immorality,
and thus fell
below their
environment.
The other, Jesus
Christ,
was an extremist
for love,
truth
and
goodness,
and thereby
rose above his
environment.
Perhaps the South,
the nation
and the world
are in dire need of
creative extremists.
I had hoped that the
white moderate
would see this need.
Perhaps I was
too optimistic;
perhaps I expected
too much.
I suppose I should have
realized
that few members of the
oppressor race
can understand the
deep groans
and passionate
yearnings
of the oppressed race,
and still fewer
have the vision to see
that injustice
must be rooted out
by strong, persistent
and determined action.
I am thankful, however,
that some of our
white brothers in the
South
have grasped the
meaning
of this
social revolution
and committed
themselves
to it.
They are still
all too few
in quantity,
but they are big in
quality.
Some
-- such as
Ralph McGill, Lillian
Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton
Boyle --
have written about
our struggle
in eloquent
and prophetic
terms.
Others have marched
with us
down nameless streets
of the South.
They have languished in
filthy,
roach infested jails,
suffering the abuse
and brutality of
policemen
who view them as
"dirty
nigger-lovers."
Unlike so many of their
moderate brothers and
sisters,
they have recognized
the
urgency of the moment
and sensed the need
for powerful
"action"
antidotes
to combat the disease
of segregation.
Let me take note of my
other
major disappointment.
I have been so greatly
disappointed
with the white church
and its leadership.
Of course, there are
some notable exceptions.
I am not unmindful of
the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue.
I commend you, Reverend
Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming
Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis.
I commend the Catholic
leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years
ago.
But despite these
notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been
disappointed with the church.
I do not say this as one of those negative
critics who can always find something wrong with the church.
I say this as a
minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its
bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will
remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly
catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama,
a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church.
I felt that the white
ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest
allies.
Instead, some have been
outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and
misrepresenting its leaders;
all too many others have been more cautious
than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security
of stained glass windows.
In spite of my
shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white
religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause
and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our
just grievances could reach the power structure.
I had hoped that each
of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous
southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a
desegregation decision because it is the law,
but I have longed to hear
white ministers declare:
"Follow this
decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your
brother."
In the midst of blatant
injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand
on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious
trivialities.
In the midst of a
mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have
heard many ministers say:
"Those are social
issues, with which the gospel has no real concern."
And I have watched many
churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which
makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between
the sacred and the secular.
I have traveled the
length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern
states.
On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked
at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing
heavenward.
I have beheld the
impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings.
Over and over I have
found myself asking:
"What kind of
people worship here?
Who is their God?
Where were their voices
when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and
nullification?
Where were they when
Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred?
Where were their voices
of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from
the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative
protest?"
Yes, these questions
are still in my mind.
In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity
of the church.
But be assured that my tears have been tears of love.
There can be no deep
disappointment where there is not deep love.
Yes, I love the church.
How could I do otherwise?
I am in the rather
unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of
preachers.
Yes, I see the church
as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that
body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when
the church was very powerful -- in the time when the early Christians
rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed.
In those days the
church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles
of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of
society.
Whenever the early
Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and
immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of
the peace" and "outside agitators."
But the Christians
pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of
heaven," called to obey God rather than man.
Small in number, they
were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be
"astronomically intimidated."
By their effort and
example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and
gladiatorial contests.
Things are different
now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an
uncertain sound.
So often it is an
archdefender of the status quo.
Far from being
disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the
average community is consoled by the church's silent -- and often even
vocal -- sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God
is upon the church as never before.
If today's church does
not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its
authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an
irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.
Every day I meet young
people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright
disgust.
Perhaps I have once
again been too optimistic.
Is organized religion
too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?
Perhaps I must turn my
faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the
true ekklesia and the hope of the world.
But again I am thankful
to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have
broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as
active partners in the struggle for freedom.
They have left their
secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us.
They have gone down the
highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom.
Yes, they have gone to
jail with us.
Some have been
dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and
fellow ministers.
But they have acted in
the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.
Their witness has been
the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in
these troubled times.
They have carved a
tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.
I hope the church as a
whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour.
But even if the church
does not come to the aid of justice,
I have no despair about
the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in
Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood.
We will reach the goal
of freedom
in Birmingham
and all over the
nation,
because the goal of
America
is
freedom.
Abused and scorned
though we may be,
our destiny is tied up
with
America's destiny.
Before the pilgrims
landed at Plymouth,
we were here.
Before the pen of
Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence
across the pages of history,
we were here.
For more than two
centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages;
they made
cotton king;
they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross
injustice and shameful humiliation --
and yet out of a
bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop.
If the inexpressible
cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will
surely fail.
We will win our freedom
because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are
embodied in our echoing demands.
Before closing I feel
impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me
profoundly.
You warmly commended
the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and
"preventing violence."
I doubt
that you would have so
warmly commended the
police force
if you had seen its
dogs sinking their
teeth into
unarmed,
nonviolent Negroes.
I doubt
that you would so
quickly
commend the
policemen
if you were to
observe
their ugly
and inhumane
treatment of Negroes
here in the
city jail;
if you were to watch
them
push and curse
old Negro women
and young Negro girls;
if you were to see them
slap and kick
old Negro men
and young boys;
if you were to observe
them,
as they did
on two occasions,
refuse
to give us food
because we wanted
to sing our
grace
together.
I cannot join you
in your praise of the
Birmingham
police department.
It is true that the
police
have exercised a
degree of discipline
in handling the
demonstrators.
In this sense they have
conducted themselves
rather
"nonviolently"
in
public.
But for what purpose?
To preserve the evil
system of
segregation.
Over the past few years
I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we
use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
I have tried to make
clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.
But now I must affirm
that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to
preserve immoral ends.
Perhaps Mr. Connor and
his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public,
as was Chief Pritchett
in Albany, Georgia,
but they have used the
moral means of nonviolence
to maintain the immoral
end of racial injustice.
As T. S. Eliot has
said:
"The last
temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong
reason."
I wish you had
commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their
sublime courage,
their willingness to
suffer
and their amazing
discipline in the midst of great provocation.
One day the South will
recognize its real heroes.
They will be the James
Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face
jeering and hostile mobs,
and with the agonizing
loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer.
They will be old,
oppressed, battered Negro women,
symbolized in a seventy
two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama,
who rose up with a
sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses,
and
who responded with
ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness:
"My feets is
tired, but my soul is at rest."
They will be the young
high school and college students,
the young ministers of
the gospel
and a host of their
elders,
courageously and
nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters
and
willingly going to jail
for conscience' sake.
One day the South will
know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch
counters,
they were in reality
standing up for what is best in the American dream
and for the most sacred
values in our Judaeo Christian heritage,
thereby bringing our
nation back to those great wells of democracy
which were dug deep by
the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I
written so long a letter.
I'm afraid it is much
too long to take your precious time.
I can assure you that
it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable
desk,
but what else can one
do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell,
other than write long
letters,
think long thoughts
and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything
in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable
impatience,
I beg you to forgive
me.
If I have said anything
that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows
me to settle for anything less than brotherhood,
I beg God to forgive
me.
I hope this letter
finds you strong in the faith.
I also hope that
circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you,
not as an
integrationist or a civil-rights leader
but as a fellow
clergyman
and a Christian
brother.
Let us all hope that
the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away
and the deep fog of
misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities,
and in some not too
distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over
our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours
for the cause of
Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
*
* * *
"Letter from a
Birmingham Jail"
Wisdom Peace
requires
Time and Patience
and requires
all of your actions
to be done
with
Wisdom Virtues.
But in the end . . .
You will See
That God was doing
all the
Fighting for You
while you
remained
in
Wisdom Peace.
God's Way of Fighting
is not by destruction
of the body.
But by Judgment
of
Your Soul.
The One who exists
in the living state
and the
non-living state
and
commands
the Souls of all Life
into
existence
and
extinction.
God owns your
SOUL.
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