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

[Nicholas Sarwark]

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.