The following is the public statement
directed to Martin Luther King, Jr.,
by eight Alabama clergymen
We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued "an
appeal for law and order and common sense," in dealing with racial problems
in Alabama. We expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters
could properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those
courts should in the meantime be peacefully obeyed.
Since that time there had been some evidence of increased forbearance and a
willingness to face facts. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on
various problems which cause racial friction and unrest. In Birmingham, recent
public events have given indication that we all have opportunity for a new
constructive and realistic approach to racial problems.
However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our
Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural
impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But
we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.
We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for
honest and open negotiation of racial issues in our area. And we believe this
kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own
metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experience
of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find
proper channels for its accomplishment.
Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction
in our religious and political traditions," we also point out that such
actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those
actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We
do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are
justified in Birmingham.
We commend the community as a whole, and the local news media and law
enforcement officials in particular, on the calm manner in which these
demonstrations have been handled. We urge the public to continue to show
restraint should the demonstrations continue, and the law enforcement officials
to remain calm and continue to protect our city from violence.
We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from
these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better
Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in
the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We
appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law
and order and common sense.
Bishop C.C.J. Carpenter, D.D., LL.D., Episcopalian Bishop
of Alabama
Bishop Joseph A. Durick, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of
Mobile, Birmingham
Rabbi Milton L. Grafman, Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, Alabama
Bishop Paul Hardin, Methodist Bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference
Bishop Nolan B. Harmon, Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist
Church
Rev. George M. Murray, D.D., LL.D, Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of
Alabama
Rev. Edward V. Ramage, Moderator, Synod of the Alabama Presbyterian Church in
the United States
Rev. Earl Stallings, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
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 all of
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 mayoralty
election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action
until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public
Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run-off we
decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the
demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we
waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after
postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our
direct-action program could be delayed no longer.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins,
marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in
calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension
that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront
the issue. It seeks to so 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-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 tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect
next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go
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 want to 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 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: "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 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 the 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 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 too few in quantity, but they are big in
quality. Some---such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride
Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle---have written about our struggle in
eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets
of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach-infested jails, suffering
the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger lovers."
Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the
urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to
combat the disease of segregation.
Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I
have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of
course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that
each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you,
Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming
Negroes to your worship service on a non segregated basis. I commend the
Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years
ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must
honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say
this as one of those negative .critics who can always find. something wrong with
the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who
was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and
who will remain true to it as long as the cord of Rio shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership
of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be
supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis
of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been
outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and
misrepresenting its leader era; an too many others have been more cautious than
courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of
stained-glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to
Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community
would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as
the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I
had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders
admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is
the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree
because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In
the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white
churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious. irrelevancies and sanctimonious
trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and
economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues,
with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches
commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange,
on Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the
secular.
I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama,
Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and
crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their
lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her
massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking:
"What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices
when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and
nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for
defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary
Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the
bright hills of creative protest?"
Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep
disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my
tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there
is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? l am in the
rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of
preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have
blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being
nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful
in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer
for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer
that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat
that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a
town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the
Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators" But the
Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven,"
called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in
commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By
their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as
infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary
church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an
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 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
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. There 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. There will be the 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." There 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.