‘perhaps the south, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists’

This is my fa­vorite piece by Dr. King.

It had pro­found in­flu­ence on how I view my role as an ally in the strug­gle for racial equal­i­ty. I es­pe­cial­ly think in the cur­rent cli­mate, the para­graphs about the “white mod­er­ate” are in­cred­i­bly rel­e­vant:
 

let­ter from a birm­ing­ham jail [king, jr.]
16 April 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 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 demon­stra­tions are tak­ing place in Birm­ing­ham, but it is even more un­for­tu­nate that the city’s white pow­er struc­ture left the Ne­gro com­mu­ni­ty with no al­ter­na­tive.

In any non­vi­o­lent cam­paign there are four ba­sic steps: col­lec­tion of the facts to de­ter­mine whether in­jus­tices ex­ist; ne­go­ti­a­tion; self pu­rifi­ca­tion; and di­rect ac­tion. We have gone through all 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 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, 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 jet­like speed to­ward gain­ing po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence, but we still creep at horse and bug­gy pace to­ward gain­ing a cup of cof­fee at a lunch counter. Per­haps it is easy for those who have nev­er felt the sting­ing 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 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 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 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 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 co work­ers with God, and with­out this hard work, time it­self be­comes an ally of the forces of so­cial stag­na­tion. We must use time cre­ative­ly, in the knowl­edge that the time is al­ways ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democ­ra­cy and trans­form our pend­ing na­tion­al el­e­gy into a cre­ative psalm of broth­er­hood. Now is the time to lift our na­tion­al pol­i­cy from the quick­sand of racial in­jus­tice to the sol­id rock of hu­man dig­ni­ty.

You speak of our ac­tiv­i­ty in Birm­ing­ham as ex­treme. At 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 a few mid­dle-class Ne­groes who, be­cause of a de­gree of aca­d­e­m­ic and eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty and be­cause in some ways they prof­it by seg­re­ga­tion, have be­come in­sen­si­tive to the prob­lems of the mass­es. The oth­er force is one of bit­ter­ness and ha­tred, and it comes per­ilous­ly close to ad­vo­cat­ing vi­o­lence. It is ex­pressed in the var­i­ous black na­tion­al­ist groups that are spring­ing up across the na­tion, the largest and best known be­ing Eli­jah Muhammad’s Mus­lim move­ment. Nour­ished by the Negro’s frus­tra­tion over the con­tin­ued ex­is­tence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, this move­ment is made up of peo­ple who have lost faith in Amer­i­ca, who have ab­solute­ly re­pu­di­at­ed Chris­tian­i­ty, and who have con­clud­ed that the white man is an in­cor­ri­gi­ble “dev­il.”

I have tried to stand be­tween these two forces, say­ing that we need em­u­late nei­ther the “do nothingism” of the com­pla­cent nor the ha­tred and de­spair of the black na­tion­al­ist. For there is the more ex­cel­lent way of love and non­vi­o­lent protest. I am grate­ful to God that, through the in­flu­ence of the Ne­gro church, the way of non­vi­o­lence be­came an in­te­gral part of our strug­gle. If this phi­los­o­phy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am con­vinced, be flow­ing with blood. And I am fur­ther con­vinced that if our white broth­ers dis­miss as “rab­ble rousers” and “out­side ag­i­ta­tors” those of us who em­ploy non­vi­o­lent di­rect ac­tion, and if they refuse to sup­port our non­vi­o­lent ef­forts, mil­lions of Ne­groes will, out of frus­tra­tion and de­spair, seek so­lace and se­cu­ri­ty in black na­tion­al­ist ide­olo­gies – a de­vel­op­ment that would in­evitably lead to a fright­en­ing racial night­mare.

Op­pressed peo­ple can­not re­main op­pressed for­ev­er. The yearn­ing for free­dom even­tu­al­ly man­i­fests it­self, and that is what has hap­pened to the Amer­i­can Ne­gro. Some­thing with­in has re­mind­ed him of his birthright of free­dom, and some­thing with­out has re­mind­ed him that it can be gained. Con­scious­ly or un­con­scious­ly, he has been caught up by the Zeit­geist, and with his black broth­ers of Africa and his brown and yel­low broth­ers of Asia, South Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, the Unit­ed States Ne­gro is mov­ing with a sense of great ur­gency to­ward the promised land of racial jus­tice. If one rec­og­nizes this vi­tal urge that has en­gulfed the Ne­gro com­mu­ni­ty, one should read­i­ly un­der­stand why pub­lic demon­stra­tions are tak­ing place. The Ne­gro has many pent up re­sent­ments and la­tent frus­tra­tions, and he must re­lease them. So let him march; let him make prayer pil­grim­ages to the city hall; let him go on free­dom rides – and try to un­der­stand why he must do so. If his re­pressed emo­tions are not re­leased in non­vi­o­lent ways, they will seek ex­pres­sion through vi­o­lence; this is not a threat but a fact of his­to­ry. So I have not said to my peo­ple: “Get rid of your dis­con­tent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this nor­mal and healthy dis­con­tent can be chan­neled into the cre­ative out­let of non­vi­o­lent di­rect ac­tion. And now this ap­proach is be­ing termed ex­trem­ist. But though I was ini­tial­ly dis­ap­point­ed at be­ing cat­e­go­rized as an ex­trem­ist, as I con­tin­ued to think about the mat­ter I grad­u­al­ly gained a mea­sure of sat­is­fac­tion from the la­bel. Was not Je­sus an ex­trem­ist for love: “Love your en­e­mies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which de­spite­ful­ly use you, and per­se­cute you.“ Was not Amos an ex­trem­ist for jus­tice: “Let jus­tice roll down like wa­ters and right­eous­ness like an ever flow­ing stream.” Was not Paul an ex­trem­ist for the Chris­t­ian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Je­sus.” Was not Mar­tin Luther an ex­trem­ist: “Here I stand; I can­not do oth­er­wise, so help me God.” And John Bun­yan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days be­fore I make a butch­ery of my con­science.” And Abra­ham Lin­coln: “This na­tion can­not sur­vive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jef­fer­son: “We hold these truths to be self ev­i­dent, that all men are cre­at­ed equal …” So the ques­tion is not whether we will be ex­trem­ists, but what kind of ex­trem­ists we will be. Will we be ex­trem­ists for hate or for love? Will we be ex­trem­ists for the preser­va­tion of in­jus­tice or for the ex­ten­sion of jus­tice? In that dra­mat­ic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were cru­ci­fied. We must nev­er for­get that all three were cru­ci­fied for the same crime – the crime of ex­trem­ism. Two were ex­trem­ists for im­moral­i­ty, and thus fell be­low their en­vi­ron­ment. The oth­er, Je­sus Christ, was an ex­trem­ist for love, truth and good­ness, and there­by rose above his en­vi­ron­ment. Per­haps the South, the na­tion and the world are in dire need of cre­ative ex­trem­ists.

I had hoped that the white mod­er­ate would see this need. Per­haps I was too op­ti­mistic; per­haps I ex­pect­ed too much. I sup­pose I should have re­al­ized that few mem­bers of the op­pres­sor race can un­der­stand the deep groans and pas­sion­ate yearn­ings of the op­pressed race, and still few­er have the vi­sion to see that in­jus­tice must be root­ed out by strong, per­sis­tent and de­ter­mined ac­tion. I am thank­ful, how­ev­er, that some of our white broth­ers in the South have grasped the mean­ing of this so­cial rev­o­lu­tion and com­mit­ted them­selves to it. They are still 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 oth­er world­ly 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 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. 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 “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.
 
 
 

—na­tal­ie michelle

Flom­mist Na­tal­ie Michelle does­n’t have a bio. She just rants. Copy­right © 2018 Na­tal­ie Michelle. Pic­tured up top: Mark Ul­rik­sen, In Cre­ative Bat­tle (cropped), cov­er il­lus­tra­tion for the lat­est New York­er mag­a­zine, 15 Jan­u­ary 2018. MLK’s Let­ter from a Birm­ing­ham Jail [King, Jr.] via the African Stud­ies Cen­ter web­site, Un­vier­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, page ed­i­tor: Ali B. Ali-Di­nar, Ph.D.

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