(Note from the author: 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 trustee, 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.)
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.
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 Brimingham.
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 an 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 bad 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 with with-drawal 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 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,
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 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 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-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 no
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
won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws
and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact
that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust.
I would be the Brat 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 distort 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 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 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: "As 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 6e
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
an men are created equal ..." So the question
is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind
of extremists we viii be. We we be extremists for hate
or for love? Will we be extremist 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, Jeans 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 arch defender 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 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 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 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 handing the demonstrators. In this
sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently"
in pubic. 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.
Dr. King's Speeches
These are the other two famous speeches by Dr. King:
