Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963
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.
April 16, 1963
MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came
across your recent statement calling my present activities
"unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism
of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the
criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have
little time for anything other than such correspondence in
the course of the day, and I would have no time for
constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of
genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set
forth, I want to try to answer your 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 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 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-oat 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 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-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 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: "An 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 Walleye 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 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, 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. 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.
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