Letter from Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
Note: Priests for Life invites pro-lifers and other members of our
nation today to reread this historic letter, and see how many powerful parallels
there are at this moment between the principles Dr. King enunciated in his quest
for racial justice, and the principles the pro-life movement enunciates in the
quest for justice for the unborn. Note also the similarity of so many of the
criticisms leveled against Dr. King and his co-workers with the criticisms of
pro-life people, especially those who directly intervene to save the lives of
the unborn. (Click here to read the
letter to which Dr. King was responding.)
We are committed, over three decades after this letter was written, to
applying its wisdom to the eradication of abortion from our land. We have the
same sense of confidence which comes through in this letter, that the day of
justice for the unborn will not long be delayed.
Fr. Frank Pavone
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 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 he 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 jet 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-country drive and find it necessary to deep 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
"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 segregation 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 coworkers 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 the few middle-class Negroes who, because of a
degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by
segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other
force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to
advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups
that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah
Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the
continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people
who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and
who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."
I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate
neither the "do-nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the
black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent
protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church,
the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.
If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I
am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our
white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us
who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our
nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair,
seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies - a development that
would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom
eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American
Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and
something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or
unconsciously he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist and with his black brothers
of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the
Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency
toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge
that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public
demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and
latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make
prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to
understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in
nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a
threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "get rid of your
discontent;" rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent
can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now
this approach is being termed extremist.
But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist,
as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of
satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist
for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I
bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an
extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John
Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of
my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and
half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal..." So the question is not whether we will be
extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for
hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for
the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men
were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same
crime, the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell
below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love,
truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South,
the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
I had hoped that the white Moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too
optimistic perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that
few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate
yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that
injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am
thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the
meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still
all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph
McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah
Patton Boyle have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms.
Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have
languished in filthy roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of
policemen who view them as 'dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their
moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment
and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of
segregation.
Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly
disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some
notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken
some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for
your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship
service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state
for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been
disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics
who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of
the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been
sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as
the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in
Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white
church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would
be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents,
refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all
too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent
behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the
white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause
and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just
grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would
understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to
comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to
hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally
right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices
inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline
and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a
mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard
many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real
concern," and I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely
otherworldly 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 mires of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town,
the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the
Christian 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 "non
violently" 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's 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.
