AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER - UNIVERSITY OF

PENNSYLVANIA

"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.
1
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. 2

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
3 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
4 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 5an 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
6
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 a7 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
8 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
9
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,
10we 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
11
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."
12
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
13
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,
14 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
15
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?
16Where 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
17
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
18
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 that19
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
20desk, 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.
Published in:
King, Martin Luther Jr.

Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.

Previous Country
Home Page What's New Search
Menu Specific

21