quote:
Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham JailAuthor's Note: This response to a published statement by eight fellow
clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A.
Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B.
Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and
the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting
circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the
statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps
of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a
pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text
remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's
prerogative of polishing it for publication.
April 16, 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 statements 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
non-violent 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 mayoralty 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, non-violent
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, we must 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 civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.
Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privil
eged 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 jet-like
speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff 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 dark 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 exp
ect 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 won ask: "How can you advocate
breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that
there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat 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 distort 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 aw
ful. Paul Tillich 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 upon
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 face 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
anti-religious 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 Councillor 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 fan 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 an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air
and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tensi
on 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 rational 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 appall
ing 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 frustrat
ion 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 re
leased 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 an
men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we
will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii 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 have committed themselves to it. They are still 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 lo
vers." 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 non-segregated 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 Rio 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 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 leadership; and 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, on 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 Walleye
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? l 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
arch-defender 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, ham 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 s
lavery 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
handing 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.
Polygraph Place Bulletin Board
posted 01-07-2008 07:11 PM
posted 01-31-2008 12:40 AM
posted 02-05-2008 04:01 PM
