“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail,
I came across your recent statement calling 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
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 so 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; selfpurification;
and direct action. We have gone through all these
steps in Birmingham. There can be no gain saying
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 that 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 retaliation?”
“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 economicwithdrawal
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 “Bill” 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 halftruths 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
that Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists,
dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I
have hoped 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
that 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 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 that 340 years for our
constitutional and Godgiven 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-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 your 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 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 is it 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 it’s 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 anti-religious 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 Councilor 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 Icannot agree
with your methods of direct action”; who
paternalistically believes he can set the timetable
for another mans freedom; who lives by a mythical
concept of time and who constantly advises the
Negro the wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will
is more frustrating that 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
it 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 relations 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
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 the 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 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
clergyman 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 closed on 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 blacknationalist 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
and 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 am 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 Calvery’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 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
otherworldly 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 for Governor Barnett dripped
with words of interposition and nullification?
Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion
call 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. 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 Gad 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 to 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
if freedom. Abuse and scorned though we may be,
our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny.
Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, 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 bottomless vitality they continued
to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties
of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we
not 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 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 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 demonstrations.
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
or 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 when 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.