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