[Lnc-business] Letter from a Birmingham jail - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Starchild starchild at lp.org
Mon Jan 15 18:36:20 EST 2018


	Thank you, Nick. I've read Dr. King's famous letter before, but yes, it's worth re-reading. It's a beautiful and powerful piece of writing which helps affirm the rightness of remembering his legacy with this holiday.

Love & Liberty,
                                
                                    ((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
                         RealReform at earthlink.net
                                  (415) 625-FREE


On Jan 15, 2018, at 3:18 PM, Nicholas Sarwark wrote:

> Dear All,
> 
> In honor of the holiday, below is the entirety of Dr. King's Letter
> from a Birmingham jail.
> 
> If you've never read it before, it's worth your time.  if you have
> read it before, it's worth your time again.
> 
> Yours in liberty,
> Nick
> 
> ***
> 
> 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.
> 
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