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. 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." to live in monologue rather than dialogue. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. 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. 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. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all.". We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." In the letter, King responds specifically to a statement published in a local newspaper by eight white clergymen, calling the protests “unwise and untimely” and condemning to the “outsiders” who were leading them. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. ", Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail, Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. 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 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. 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 no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. 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. This paper summarizes the letter from Birmingham Jail and looks at the various responses that Martin Luther King Junior offered. "Wait!" They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." 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. One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely.". One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. x��}m�]���wW��G��x��.�PT!)���̅�|���1>�N�͵��ȯuk�s��z��}�R0��Z�����>�����n�?}�٧_���������O�|w�������}��ۗ���~����>>��?�ӻw�w�?�����:��'O���N>��;���'c�%���}��o�����'_~�ɓO�dNƜ���O���R�gN��s:{v����+ٟ�K��>y��^�����'?<57? ", Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Letter from birmingham jail annotated bibliography!! @childishcalvinoo: fax shit be ode, niggas is not tryna know all dis. Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that. I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. 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. hong kong war diary. How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? 791-800. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote this letter after his arrest for being a part of the non violent protest dubbed the “Birmingham Campaign” which took place in Birmingham, Alabama. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." The letter conveys a deep message of African-American suffering, what constitutes a non-violent protest, and when “turning the other cheek” just doesn’t cut it anymore. 1. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. 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. 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. }��'O����>y���M��ϝ�9��>��4~��3�~����%{b�����|u:}�W�_��揧e��9��ou���=�%��O.����D��?NOR����:�S�@���}�ɓ�6~ڬ?�ض'���=/֟��b�����[C��P߿��c���;}��O�r�͐�v�D�g�O�?��� ����O���|ő�5�
���[Dk��ۑ�i�9���7D��9����h}�ݬ�C�g+�� Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Letter From Birmingham Jail Annotated 9197223473 usa telephone goldsboro nc 919 722 3473. ulysses s grant first inaugural address u s inaugural. 6!!!! 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. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. 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? We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience. To preserve the evil system of segregation. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. %����
Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? 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. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence.". But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. 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. 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. It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. 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. If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. 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. an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. 2 0 obj
Things are different now. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating? the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. prophets of the eighth century B.C. . So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." That public appeal was By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. He gave the strips of paper to his lawyer who then sent it to Movement Headquarters, where the Reverend Wyatt Walker began compiling and editing the literary jigsaw puzzle. 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. �VE�r�C���A�.\�\7�Rd9��U�lJf���h���K�P$�����
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��5q�� the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. Letter from Birmingham Jail Dr. King was arrested in 1963 in the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists. ." 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. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? %PDF-1.5
Isn't negotiation a better path?" Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" LOGOS Logos is an appeal to our logic or reasoning. 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. ! But, oh! And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. 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. 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. Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) [Abridged] April 16, 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen, While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas … Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? 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. 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. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. <>>>
One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. .". Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. 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. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. 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. as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. 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. 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. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. For Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, displays the power and rhetoric of a reformer’s sermon. And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. 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. 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. In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. 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. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason." Ethos. 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. 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. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. "; 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. 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. Let me give another explanation. To preserve the evil system of segregation. 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. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? "A Call for Unity" was an open letter published in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 12, 1963, by eight local white clergymen in response to civil rights demonstrations taking place in the area at the time. Web. Last Modified on October 8, 2015. 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." Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. 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. 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? We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. This is difference made legal. It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. 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. You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. 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. 4 0 obj
I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. 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. 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. Martin Luther King Letter From Birmingham Jail King, Martin L. "Teaching American History | A Leading Online Resource for American History Teachers & Students Teaching American History. Letter from Birmingham Jail (HarvardX) Lyrics My Dear Fellow Clergymen: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent … Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." In I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. 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. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. 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. He went into more detail about racism and discrimination in Birmingham. In our scientific world, many times logos involves statistics. 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. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. psalms 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. Never before have I written so long a letter. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. Annotated Bibliography; Community Blog; ... Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail . Dr. Examples of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. How could I do otherwise? "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" 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. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. Letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in longhand the letter which follows. Letter from Birmingham Jail A vigorous, eloquent reply to criticism expressed by a grou p of eigh t clergymen. It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. 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." 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. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." This is certainly a legitimate concern. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. 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. A reading of the letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King jr. A reading of the letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King jr. 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. The document available for viewing above is from an early draft of the Letter, while the audio is from King’s reading of the Letter later. A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. You may well ask: "Why direct action? An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Letter from Birmingham Jail – Five Canons Exploring Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of ancient rhetoric in his letter to the Alabama clergymen in 1963 You have already read and annotated the essay/letter. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. 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. e�9�B��bFR�P>�Ci�{ŝ]V��(�I�����"��?#ڒ�Y95�z#x�*qU �p7ٺZR�:>��6���n�\u9��x܍�m�~"�. Oppenheimer takes a legal approach of the circumstances that landed King in prison in Birmingham. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. ... PDF downloads of all 1408 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. 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. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. 1 0 obj
They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. And now this approach is being termed extremist. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience. In the Birmingham City Jail, Dr. King wrote his letter on the margins of newspaper, the only paper available. 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.