Letter From a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:
While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement
calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, 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 be engaged in little else 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 goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your
statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been
influenced by the argument of "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
affiliate organizations all across the South--one being the Alabama Christian Movement for
Human Rights. Whenever necessary and possible we share staff, educational and financial
resources with our affiliates. Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham
invited 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 promises.
So I am here, along with several members of my staff, because I have basic organizational
ties here.
Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth century
prophets left their little villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far
beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little
village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and
city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond
my particular 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 in this country.
You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am
sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that
brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond
the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects, and does not grapple with
underlying causes. I would not hesitate to say that it is unfortunate that so-called
demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham at this time, but I would say in more
emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this
city left the Negro community with no other alternative.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) Collection of the facts to
determine whether injustices are alive. 2) Negotiation. 3) Self-purification and 4) Direct
action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying
of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community.
Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its
ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. Its unjust
treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved
bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation. These are
the hard, brutal and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders
sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused
to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the
economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the
merchants--such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On
the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian
Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As
the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise.
The signs remained. Like so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted
hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no
alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very
bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national
community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through
a process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly
asked ourselves the questions: "Are you able to accept blows without
retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?" We decided to
set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that with the exception
of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong
economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this
was the best time to bring pressure on the merchants for the needed changes. Then it
occurred to us that the March election was ahead and so we speedily decided to postpone
action until after election day. When we discovered that Mr. Connor was in the run-off, we
decided again to postpone action so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the
issues. At this time we agreed to begin our nonviolent witness the day after the run-off.
This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action. We too wanted to
see Mr. Connor defeated; so we went through postponement after postponement to aid in this
community need. After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn't
negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in your call for negotiation.
Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create
such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that 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. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of
the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess
that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against
violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that 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 see the need of having
nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise
from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and
brotherhood. So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed
that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in
your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the
tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely. Some have
asked, "Why didn't you give the new administration time to act?" The only answer
that I can give to this inquiry is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded
about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel
that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr.
Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both
segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in
Mr. Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive
resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the 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. History is the long and
tragic story of the 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 are 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 never yet engaged in a
direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of
those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have
heard the words [sic]"Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing
familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come
to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is
justice denied."
We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and
God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the
goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the
gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess 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, brutalize and even kill your
black brothers and sisters with impunity; 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 the depressing clouds
of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her
little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you
have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: "Daddy,
why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country
drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of
your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day
out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first
name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you
are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given
the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by
the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing
what to expect next, and 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 an 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, it is rather strange
and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask: "How can you
advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that
there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I
would agree with Saint Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when 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 Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal
and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades
human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation
distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of
superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin
Buber, the Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes and "I-it" relationship
for an "I-thou" relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of
things. So segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound,
but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn't
segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his
awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to disobey segregation
ordinances because they are morally wrong.
Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code
that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference
made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to
follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.
Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority
which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the
unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the
segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of
conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters and there
are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote despite the fact that the
Negro constitutes a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be
considered democratically structured?
These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There are some instances when a
law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday
on a charge of parading without a permit. Now there is nothing wrong with an ordinance
which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve
segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and
peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.
I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate
evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do. This would lead to
anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly, (not hatefully
as the white mothers did in New Orleans when they were seen on television screaming
"nigger, nigger, nigger") and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit
that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly
accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its
injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen
sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of
Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the
early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of
chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire. To a degree
academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.
We can never forget that everything 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. But I am sure that if I
had lived in Germany during that time I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers
even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain
principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate
disobeying these anti-religious laws. I must make two honest confessions to you, my
Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last 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 the 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 can't agree with your methods of
direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another
man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait
until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill
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 to do this they become
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 merely a
necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro
passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where 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 as long as it is covered up but must
be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,
injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the
light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be
condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made?
Isn't this like condemning the 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 delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make
him drink the hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because His unique
God-Consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of
crucifixion? We must come to see, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, that
it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic
constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the
robbed and punish the robber.
I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a
letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said: "All Christians know
that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you
are in too great of a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to
accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." All that
is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the the strangely
irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably
cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or
constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill-will have used time much more
effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not
merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling
silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on
wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work 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, and forever realize 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 spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed
that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of the extremist. I started
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 of Negroes who, as a result of long years
of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of
"somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation, and, of a few Negroes in
the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security, and because
at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the
problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness, and hatred comes perilously
close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that
are springing up over the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad's
Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the
continued existence of racial discrimination. It 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 incurable "devil." I have tried to stand between these two
forces saying that we need not follow the "do-nothingism" of the complacent or
the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is the more excellent way of love
and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension
of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am convinced
that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am
further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and
"outside agitators" those of us who are working through the channels of
nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of
Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in
black-nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening
racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually
come. This is what happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of
his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it.
Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist,
and with his black brothers of Africa, and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South
America and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised
land of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community,
one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent up
resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime;
let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins
and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways,
they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact
of history. So I have not said to my people "get rid of your discontent." But I
have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channelized through the
creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as
extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.
But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction
from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- "Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not
Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness
like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ --
"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an
extremist -- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John
Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a
butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation
cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist --
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So
the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be.
Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists
for the preservation of injustice--or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In
that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that
all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists
for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an
extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after
all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I
expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has
oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate
yearnings of those that have been oppressed 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 have grasped the meaning of this social
revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but
they are big in quality. Some like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden and James
Dabbs have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic and understanding 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 angry policemen who see
them as "dirty nigger lovers." They, unlike so many of their moderate brothers
and sisters, have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful
"action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.
Let me rush on to mention my other 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, Rev. 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 that as one of those negative critics who can
always find something wrong with the church. I say it 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.
I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus
protest in Montgomery several years ago, that we would have the support of the white
church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be some of
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 the
stained-glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, 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, serve as the channel through which our just grievances would get
to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have
been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their
worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I
have longed to hear white ministers say, "follow this decree because integration is
morally right and the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant
injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline
and merely 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 so many
ministers say, "Those are social issues with which the gospel has no real
concern." And I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely
other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred
and the secular.
So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious
community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other
community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.
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 her
beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the
impressive outlay of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over again 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 the clarion call for defiance
and hatred? Where were their voices of support when tired, 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; I love her
sacred walls. 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
fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the
early Christians rejoiced when they were 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 power structure got disturbed and
immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and
"outside agitators." But they went on with the conviction that they were "a
colony of heaven," and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but
big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically
intimidated." They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and
gladiatorial contest.
Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice
with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter 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 vocal sanction of things as they
are.
But the judgement of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today
does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic
ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with
no meaning for the twentieth century. I am meeting young people every day whose
disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.
Maybe again, I have been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound
to status-quo to save our nation and the world? Maybe I must turn my faith to the inner
spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ecclesia and the hope
of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of
organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined
us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure
congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone through
the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with
us. Some have been kicked out of their churches, and lost support of their bishops and
fellow ministers. But they have gone with the faith that right defeated is stronger than
evil triumphant. These men have been the leaven in the lump of the race. 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 though 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 presently
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 the destiny of America. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth we were
here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of
the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries our
fore-parents labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; and they built
the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal 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.
I must close now. But before closing I am impelled to mention one other point in your
statement that troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force
for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I don't believe you
would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs
literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I don't believe you would so quickly
commend the policemen if you would observe their ugly and inhuman treatment of Negroes
here in the city jail; if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young
Negro girls; if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you will
observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to
sing our grace together. I'm sorry that I can't join you in your praise for the police
department.
It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public handling of the
demonstrators. In this sense they have been rather publicly "nonviolent". But
for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I
have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure
as the ends we seek. So I have tried to make it 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 even more
so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Maybe Mr. Connor and his policemen have
been rather publicly nonviolent, as Chief Pritchett was in Albany, Georgia, but they have
used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of flagrant racial
injustice. T. S. Eliot has said that there is no greater treason than 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
the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will
be the James Merediths, courageously and with a majestic sense of purpose, facing 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 of Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her
people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and responded to one who inquired about
her tiredness with ungrammatical profundity; "my feet is tired, but my soul is
rested." They will be the young high school and college students, 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 the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our
Judaeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells
of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written a letter this long, (or should I say a book?). 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 is there to do
when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write
long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is
indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything
in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a
patience that makes me patient with 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.
© Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Other non-profit sites which have the Letter:
Stanford Version in Adobe Acrobat format
The University of Pennsylvania version is http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
From MIT: http://www.ai.mit.edu/~isbell/HFh/black/events_and_people/008.letter_from_jail
Michigan State: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/letter.html
Western Michigan: http://www.wmich.edu/politics/mlk/jail.html
Whippany Park High School:http://www.multipull.com/drkingday/birmjail.html
All of us are trying to educate people on the important work of Martin Luther King, Junior.
2001
