MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail,
I came across your recent statement calling my present
activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to
answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to
answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries
would have little time for anything other than such
correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have
no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you
are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are
sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements
in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
*AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by
eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter,
Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul
Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray.
the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings)
was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on
the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while
I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper
supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my
attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text
remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's
prerogative of polishing it for publication.
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 of these steps in Birmingham. There
can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs
this community. Birmingham is probably the most
thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly
record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have
experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There
have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and
churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the
nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On
the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to
negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently
refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.
Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk
with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In
the course of the negotiations, certain promises were
made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the
stores humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these
promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders
of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human
Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations.
As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we
were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly
removed, returned; the others remained.
As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been
blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled
upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for
direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies
as a means of laying our case before the conscience of
the local and the national community. Mindful of the
difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of
self-purification. We began a series of workshops on
nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves : "Are you
able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able
to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our
direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing
that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping
period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic
withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action,
we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure
to bear on the merchants for the needed change.
Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoralty
election was coming up in March, and we speedily
decided to postpone action until after election day. When
we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety,
Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be
in the run-off we decided again to postpone action until
the day after the run-off so that the demonstrations could
not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we
waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we
endured postponement after postponement. Having aided
in this community need, we felt that our direct-action
program could be delayed no longer.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins,
marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?"
You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed,
this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent
direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such
a tension that a community which has constantly refused
to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so
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,
we 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
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 stiff creep at horse-and-buggy
pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging
dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you
have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers
at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim;
when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and
even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see
the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers
smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of
an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue
twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain
to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to
the public amusement park that has just been advertised
on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when
she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children,
and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form
in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort
her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness
toward white people; when you have to concoct an
answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why
do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when
you take a cross-country 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 go 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 want to
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 awful. Paul
Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation
an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his
awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is
that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the
Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge
them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are
morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and
unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or
power majority group compels a minority group to obey
but does not make binding on itself. This is difference
made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that
a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is
willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.
Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if
it is inflicted 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 ace 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 fan in this purpose
they become the dangerously structured dams that block
the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white
moderate would understand that the present tension in
the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an
obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively
accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive
peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and
worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage
in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension.
We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension
that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where
it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never
be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened
with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and
light, injustice must be exposed, with all the 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 rational notion
that there is something in the very flow of time that
will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral;
it can be used either destructively or constructively.
More and more I feel that the people of ill will have
used time much more effectively than have the people
of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not
merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people
but for the 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 fist I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen
would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist.
I began thinking about the fact that 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 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 non segregated basis. I commend
the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring
Hill College several years ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly
reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church.
I do not say this as one of those negative .critics who can
always find. something wrong with the church. I say this as
a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was
nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its
spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long
as the cord of Rio shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of
the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years
ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church
felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the
South would be among our strongest allies. Instead,
some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand
the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leader
era; an too many others have been more cautious than
courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing
security of stained-glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham
with the hope that the white religious leadership of this
community would see the justice of our cause and, with
deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through
which our just grievances could reach the power structure.
I had hoped that each of you would understand.
But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish
their worshipers to comply with a desegregation
decision because it is the law, but I have longed to
hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because
integration is morally right and because the Negro is your
brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon
the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the
sideline and mouth pious. irrelevancies and sanctimonious
trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our
nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard
many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which
the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched
many churches commit themselves to a completely other
worldly religion which makes a strange, on Biblical distinction
between body and soul, between the sacred and
the secular.
I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama,
Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering
summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have
looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty
spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive
outlines of her massive religious-education buildings.
Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of
people worship here? Who is their God? Where were
their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped
with words of interposition and nullification? Where were
they when Governor 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? l am in the rather unique position of being the
son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers.
Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How
we have blemished and scarred that body through social
neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful
in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being
deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those
days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded
the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was
a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people
in power became disturbed and immediately sought to
convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace"
and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on,
in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven,"
called to obey God rather than man. Small in number,
they were big in commitment. They were too God
intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their
effort and example they brought an end to such ancient
evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary
church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain
sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo.
Par 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 vi 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 ecclesia 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 jai with us. Some have
been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support
of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted
in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.
Their witness has been the spiritual salt that
has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these
troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope
through the dark mountain of disappointment.
I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of
this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come
to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future.
I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in
Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood.
We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham,
ham and all over the nation, because the goal of America
k 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 handing the demonstrators. In this sense
they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently"
in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil
system of segregation. Over the past few years I
have consistently preached that nonviolence demands
that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we
seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use
immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must
affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so,
to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps
Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent
in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia
but they have used the moral means of nonviolence
to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S.
Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and
demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage,
their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline
in the midst of great provocation. One day the South
will recognize its real heroes. There 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.
There will be the 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." There will be the young high school
and college students, the young ministers of the gospel
and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently
sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for
conscience' sake. One day the South will know that
when these disinherited children of God sat down at
lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what
is best in the American dream and for the most sacred
values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing
our nation back to those great wells of democracy which
were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation
of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid
it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure
you that it would have been much shorter if I had
been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can
one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than
write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long
prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the
truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you
to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the
truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me
to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God
to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also
hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for
me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a
civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian
brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial
prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of
misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched
communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the
radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over
our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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