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 "$#@!," 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 $#@!-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.