







          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 every, do I pause to answer

          criticism of my work and ideas.  If I sought to answer all of the

          criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in

          little else 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 goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I

          would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be

          patient and reasonable terms.

               I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham

          since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders com-

          ing in."  I have the honor of serving as president of the

          Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operat-

          ing in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Geor-

          gia.  We have some eighty-five affiliate organizations all across

          the South -- one being the Alabama Christian Movement for Human

          Rights.  Whenever necessary and possible we share staff, educa-

          tional and financial resources with our affiliates.  Several

          months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to

          be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if

          such were deemed necessary.  We readily consented and when the


                                          1






               hour came we lived up to our promises.  So I am here, along with

               several members of my staff, because we were invited here.  I am

               here because I have basic organizational ties here.

                    Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

               Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages

               and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries

               of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little

               village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to prac-

               tically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am

               compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular

               home town.  Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the

               Macedonian call for aid.

                    Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all com-

               munities 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 ines-

               capable network of mutuality, tied in a single gourmet of des-

               tiny.  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 int his

               country.

                    You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking

               place in Birmingham.  But I am sorry that your statement did not


                                               2






          express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the

          demonstrations into being.  I am sure that each of you would want

          to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at

          effects, and does not grapple with underlying causes.  I would

          not hesitate to say that it is unfortunate that so-called

          demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham at this time, but I

          would say in more emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate

          that the white power structure of this city left the Negro com-

          munity with no other alternative.

               In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1)

          Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are

          alive.  2) Negotiations.  3) Self-purification and 4) Direct Ac-

          tion.  WE have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham.

          There can be no gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice en-

          gulfs this community.

               Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city

          in the United States.  Its ugly record of police brutality is

          known in every section of this country.  Its unjust treatment of

          Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality.  There have been

          more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham

          than any city in this nation.  These are the hard, brutal and un-

          believable facts.  On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders

          sought to negotiate with the city fathers.  But the political

          leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.


                                          3






                    Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some

               of the leaders of the economic community.  In these negotiating

               sessions certain promises were made by the merchants--such as the

               promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores.

               On the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders

               of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call

               a moratorium on any type of demonstrations.  As the weeks and

               months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken

               promise.  The signs remained.  Like so many experiences of the

               past we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow

               of a deep disappointment settled upon us.  So we had no alterna-

               tive except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would

               present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the

               conscience of the local and national community.  We were not un-

               mindful of the difficulties involved.  So we decided to go

               through a process of self-purification.  We started having

               workshops on non-violence and repeatedly asked ourselves the

               questions, "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?"

               "Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?"  We decided to set

               our direct action program around the Easter season, realizing

               that with the exception of Christmas, this was the largest shop-

               ping period of the year.  Knowing that a strong economic

               withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we

               felt that this was the best time to bring pressure on the mer-


                                               4






          chants for the needed changes.  Then it occurred to us that the

          March election was ahead and so we speedily decided to postpone

          action until after election day.  When we discovered that Mr.

          Connor was in the run-off, we decided again to postpone action so

          that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues.

          At this time we agreed to being our nonviolent witness the day

          after run-off.

               This reveals that we did not more irresponsibly into direct

          action.  We too wanted to see Mr. Connor defeated; so we went

          through postponement after postponement to aid in this community

          need.  After this we felt that direct action would be delayed no

          longer.

               You may well ask, "Why direct action?  Why sit-ins, marches,

          etc.? Isn't negotiation a better path?"  You are exactly right in

          your call for negotiation.  Indeed, this is the purpose of direct

          action.  Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis

          and establish such creative tension that a community that has

          constantly refused to negotiated is forced to confront the issue.

          It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ig-

          nored.  I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of

          the work of the nonviolent resister.  This may sound rather

          shocking.  But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word

          tension.  I have earnestly worked and preached against violent

          tension, but there is a type of construction nonviolent tension


                                          5






               that is necessary for growth.  Just as Socrates felt that it was

               necessary to create a tension in the mind so individuals could

               rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered

               realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see

               the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of ten-

               sion in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths

               of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding

               and brotherhood.  So the purpose of the direct action is to

               create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open

               the door to negotiation.  We, therefore, concur with you in your

               call for negotiation.  Too long has our beloved Southland been

               bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather

               than dialogue.

                    One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts

               are untimely.  Some have asked, "Why didn't you give the new ad-

               ministration time to act?"  The only answer that I can give to

               this inquiry is that the new administration must be prodded about

               as much as the outgoing one before it acts.  We will be sadly

               mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring

               the millennium to Birmingham.  While Mr. Boutwell is more more

               articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both

               segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status

               quo.  The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be

               reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to


                                               6






          desegregation.  But he will not see this without pressure from

          the devotees of civil rights.  My friends, I must say to you that

          we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined

          legal and nonviolent pressure.  History is the long and tragic

          story of the 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 are 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 never yet engaged in a direct action

          movement that was "well timed", according to the timetable of

          those who have not suffered unduly from he disease of segrega-

          tion.  For years now I have heard the words "Wait!"  It rings in

          the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity.  This "Wait"

          has almost always meant "Never."  It has been a tranquilizing

          thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to

          give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.  We must come

          to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice

          too long delayed is justice denied."  We have waited for more

          than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and

          God-given rights.  The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with

          jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we

          still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup


                                          7






               of coffee at a lunch counter.  I guess 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, brutalize and

               even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you

               see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers

               smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an af-

               fluent 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 little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to

               colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority

               begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to dis-

               tort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitter-

               ness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for

               a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos:  "Daddy, why do

               white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a

               cross country drive and find in necessary to sleep night after

               night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no

               motel will accept; when you are humiliated day in and day out by

               nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name

               becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy" (however old


                                               8






          you are) and your last name becomes "John", and when you wife and

          mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."l; when you are

          harried by day and haunted at night by the fact that you are

          Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing

          what to expect next, and 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 dif-

          ficult to wait.  There comes a time when the cup of endurance

          runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an

          abyss of injustice where they experience the blackness of corrod-

          ing 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, it is rather

          strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws.

          One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some laws and

          obeying others?"  The answer is found in the fact that there are

          two types of laws;  There are just and unjust laws.  I would

          agree with Saint Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

               Now what is the difference between the two?  How does one

          determine when 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 un-


                                          9






               just law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.  To

               put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a

               human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.  Any law

               that uplifts human personality is just.  Any law that degrades

               human personality is unjust.  All segregation statues are unjust

               because segregation distorts the soul and damages the per-

               sonality.  It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority,

               and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.  To use the

               words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation

               substitutes an "I-it" relationship for the "I-thou" relationship,

               and ends up relating persons to the status of things.  So

               segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologi-

               cally unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful.  Paul Tillich

               has said that sin is separation.  Isn't segregation an exist-

               ential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of

               his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness?  So I can urge

               men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally

               wrong.

                    Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust

               laws.  An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a

               minority that is not binding on itself.  This is difference made

               legal.  On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority

               compels a minority to follow that is willing to follow itself.

               this is sameness made legal.


                                              10






               Let me give another explanation.  An unjust law is a code

          inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in

          enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered

          right to vote.  who can say that the legislature of Alabama which

          set up the segregation laws was democratically  elected?

          Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods

          are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered votes and

          there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote

          despite the fact that the Negro constitutes a majority of the

          population.  Can any law set up in such a state be considered

          democratically structured?

               These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws.

          There are some instances when a law is just on its fact and un-

          just in its application.  For instance, I was arrested Friday on

          a charge of parading without a permit.   Now there is nothing

          wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but

          when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny

          citizens the First Amendment privilege  of peaceful assembly and

          peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

               I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out.

          In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid

          segregationist would do.  This would lead to anarchy.  One who

          breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly, (not hatefully

          as the white mothers did in New Orleans when they were seen on


                                         11






               television screaming "nigger, nigger, nigger"), and with a will-

               ingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who

               breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly

               accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience

               of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the

               very highest respect for law.

                    of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil

               disobedience.  It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shardrach,

               Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a

               higher moral law was involved.  It is practiced superbly by the

               early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the

               excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to cer-

               tain unjust laws of the Roman empire.  To a degree academic

               freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil dis-

               obedience.

                    We can never forget that everything 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. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany

               during that time I would have aided and comforted my Jewish

               brothers even though it was illegal.  If I lived in a Communist

               country today where certain principles dear to the Christian

               faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobey-

               ing these anti-religious laws.  I must make two honest confes-


                                              12






          sions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers.  first, I must

          confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disap-

          pointed with the white moderate.  I have almost reached the

          regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in

          the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er

          or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more

          devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peach

          which is the absence of tension to a positive peach which is the

          presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in

          the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct

          action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the

          timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of

          time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until 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 bewilder-

          ing 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 to do this they become dangerously structured

          dams that block the flow of social progress.  I had hopes that

          the white moderate would understand that the present tension of

          the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an

          obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his


                                         13






               unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all

               men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.  Ac-

               tually, 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 as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its

               pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,

               injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its

               exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of

               national opinion before it can be cured.

                    In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though

               peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence.

               But can this assertion be logically made?  Isn't this like con-

               demning the 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 delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to

               make him drink the hemlock?  Isn't this like condemning Jesus be-

               cause hIs unique God-Consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to

               His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?  We must come

               to see, as federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is

               immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his

               basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates


                                              14






          violence.  Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

               I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the

          myth of time.   I received a letter this morning from a white

          brother in Texas which said:  "All Christians know that the

          colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is

          possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry.  It has

          taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has.

          The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth."  All that is

          said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time.  It is the

          strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very

          flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.  Actually time

          is neutral.  It can be used either destructively or construc-

          tively.  I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have

          used time more more effectively than the people of goodwill.  We

          will have to repent in this generation not merely for the

          vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the ap-

          palling silence of the good people.  We must come to see that

          human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.  It

          comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work 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, and forever realize 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


                                         15






               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 spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme.  At

               first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see

               my nonviolent efforts as those of the extremist.  I started

               thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two oppos-

               ing forces in the Negro community.  One is a force of complacency

               made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression,

               have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of

               "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation, and, of a

               few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of

               academic and economic security, and because at points they profit

               by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the

               problems of the masses.  The other force is one of bitterness and

               hatred, and comes perilously close to advocating violence.  It is

               expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are spring

               up over the nation, the larger and best known being Elijah

               Muhammad's Muslim movement.  This movement is nourished by the

               contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial

               discrimination.  It 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 incurable "devil".  I

               have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need


                                              16






          not follow the "do-nothingism" of the complacent or the hatred

          and despair of the black nationalist.  There is the more excel-

          lent way of love and non-violent protest.  I'm grateful to God

          that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence en-

          tered our struggle.  If this philosophy had not emerged, I am

          convinced that by now many streets of the south would be flowing

          the floods of blood.  And I am further convinced that if our

          white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside

          agitators" those of us who are working through the channels of

          nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and

          despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist

          ideologies, a development that he will lead inevitably to a

          frightening racial nightmare.

               Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.  The urge

          for freedom will eventually come.  It is what happened to the

          American Negro.  Something within has reminded him of his

          birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he

          can gain it.  Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in

          by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black

          brothers of Africa, and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia,

          South America and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of

          cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

          Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro com-

          munity, one should readily understand public demonstrations.  The


                                         17






               Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations.   He

               has to get them out.  So let him march sometime; let him have his

               prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have

               sit-ins and freedom rides.  If his repressed emotions do not come

               out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous ex-

               pressions of violence.  This is not a threat; it is a fact of

               history.  So I have not said to my people "get rid of your

               discontent".  But I have tried to say that this normal and heal-

               thy discontent can be channelized through the creative outlet of

               nonviolent direct action.  Now this approach is being dismissed

               as extremist.  I must admit that I was initially disappointed in

               being so categorized.

                    But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually

               gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist.

               Was not Jesus an extremist in love - "Love your enemies, bless

               them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you."

               Was not Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down

               like waters and righteousness like a might stream."  Was not Paul

               an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ -- "bear in my body

               the marks of the Lord Jesus."  Was not Martin Luther an extremist

               -- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God."  Was not

               John Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my

               days before I make a butchery of my conscience."  Was not Abraham

               Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation cannot survive half slave


                                              18






          and half free."  Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -[- "We

          hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created

          equal."  So the question is not whether we will be extremist but

          what kind of extremist will we be.  Will we be extremists for

          hate or will be be extremists for love?  Will be be extremists

          for the preservation of injustice -- or will we be extremists for

          the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill,

          three men were crucified.   We must not forget that all three

          were crucified for the same crime -- the crime of extremism.  Two

          were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their en-

          vironment.  The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love,

          truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment.  So,

          after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire

          need of creative extremists.

               I had hoped that the white moderate would see this.  Maybe I

          was too optimistic.  Maybe I expected too much.  I guess I should

          have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed

          another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and

          passionate yearnings of those  that have been oppressed 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 have grasped the meaning

          of this social revolution and committed themselves to it.  They

          are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality.


                                         19






               Some like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden and James

               Dabbs have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic and

               understanding 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 angry

               policemen who see them as "dirty nigger lovers."  They, unlike so

               many of their moderate brothers and sisters, have recognized the

               urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action"

               antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

                    Let me rush on to mention my other disappointment.  I have

               been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its

               leadership.  Of course, there are some notable exceptions.  I am

               not the unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some

               significant stands on this issue.  I commend you, Rev. Stallings,

               for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming

               Negroes to your worship service on a non-segregated basis.  I

               commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Sprin-

               ghill 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 that as one of the negative critics who can always find

               something wrong with the church; I say it as a minister of the

               gospel, who loves the church; who has nurtured in its bosom; who

               has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain


                                              20






          true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

               I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted

          into the leadership off the bus protest in Montgomery several

          years ago that we would have the support of the white church.  I

          felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South

          would be some of 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 the stained-glass windows.

               In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Bir-

          mingham  with the hope that the white religious leadership of

          this community would see the justice of our cause, and with deep

          moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just

          grievances would get to the power structure.   I had hoped that

          each of you would understand.  But again I have been disap-

          pointed.  I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South

          call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation deci-

          sion because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white min-

          isters say, "Follow this decree because integration is morally

          right and the Negro is your brother."  In the midst of blatant

          injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white

          churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious ir-

          relevances and sanctimonious trivialities.  In the midst of a


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               mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injus-

               tice, I have heard so many ministers say, "Those are social

               issues with which the gospel has no real concern," and I have

               watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-

               worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body

               and soul, the sacred and the secular.

                    So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth cen-

               tury with a religious community largely adjusted to the status

               quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies

               rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.

                    I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Missis-

               sippi and all the other southern states.  On weltering summer

               days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at her beautiful

               churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward.  I have be-

               held the impressive outlay of her massive religious education

               buildings.  Over and over again I have found myself asking:

               "What kind of people worship here?  Who is their God?  Where were

               their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words

               of interposition and nullification?  Where were they when Gover-

               nor Wallace gave the clarion call for defiance and hatred?  Where

               were their voices of support when tired, bruised and weary Negro

               men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of com-

               placency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

                    Yes, these questions are still in my mind.  In deep disap-


                                              22






          pointment, I have wept over the laxity of the church.  But be as-

          sured 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; I love her sacred walls.  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 fear of being nonconform-

          ists.

               There was a time when the church was very powerful.  It was

          during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they

          were 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.  Wherever the early Christians

          entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately

          sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and

          "outside agitators."  But they went on with the convection that

          they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God rather than

          man.  They were small in number but big in commitment.  They were

          too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated."  They

          brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and

          gladiatorial contest.

               Things are different now.  The contemporary church is often


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               a  weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound.  It is so of-

               ten the arch supporter of the status quo.  Far from being dis-

               turbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the

               average community is consoled by the church's silent and often

               vocal sanction of things as they are.

                    But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before.

               If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit

               of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the

               loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social

               club with no meaning for the twentieth century.  I am meeting

               young people every day whose disappointment with the church has

               risen to outright disgust.

                    Maybe again, I have been too optimistic.  Is organized

               religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our na-

               tion and the world?  Maybe I must turn my faith to the inner

               spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ec-

               clesia 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 through the highways of the

               South on tortuous rides for freedom.  Yes, they have gone to jail

               with us.  Some have been kicked out of their churches, and lost


                                              24






          support of their bishops and fellow ministers.  But they have

          gone with the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil

          triumphant.  These men have been the leaven in the lump of the

          race.  Their witness have 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 mo-

          tives are presently 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 the destiny of America.  before the

          pilgrims landed at Plymouth we were here.  Before the pen of Jef-

          ferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of

          the Declaration of Independence, we were here.  For more than two

          centuries our foreparents labored in this country without wages;

          they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters

          in the midst of brutal 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


                                         25






               win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the

               eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

                    I must close now.  But before closing I am impelled to men-

               tion one other point in your statement that troubled me

               profoundly.  You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for

               keeping "order" and preventing violence".  I don't believe you

               would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen

               its angry violent dogs literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent

               Negroes.  I don't believe you would so quickly commend the

               policemen if you would observe their ugly and inhuman treatment

               of Negroes here in the city jail; if you would watch them push

               and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you would see

               them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you will ob-

               serve them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food

               because we wanted to sing our grace together.  I'm sorry that I

               can't join you in your praise for the police department.

                    It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their

               public handling of the demonstrators.  In this sense they have

               been rather publicly "nonviolent".  But for what purpose?  To

               preserve the evil system of segregation.  Over the last few years

               I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the

               means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.  So I have

               tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to

               attain moral ends.  but now I must affirm that it is just as


                                              26






          wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral

          ends.  Maybe Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather

          publicly nonviolent, as Chief Pritchett was in Albany, Georgia,

          but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the

          immoral end of flagrant racial injustice.  T. S. Eliot has said

          that there is no greater treason than 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 the most inhuman provocation.  One day the South will recog-

          nize its real heroes.  They will be the James Merediths,

          courageiously and with a majestic sense of purpose facing jeering

          and hostile mobs and 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 of

          Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with

          her people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and

          responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with ungram-

          matical profundity:  "My feet is tired, but my soul is rested."

          They will be the young high school and college students, 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's sake.  One day the South will know that


                                         27






               when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch coun-

               ters they were in reality standing up for the best in the

               American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian

               heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those

               great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding

               fathers in the formulation of the constitution and the Declara-

               tion of Independence.

                    Never before have I written a letter this long (or should I

               say a book?).  I'm afraid that it is much to 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 is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull

               monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters,

               think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?

                    If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstate-

               ment of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable im-

               patience, I beg you to forgive me.  If I have said anything in

               this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indica-

               tive of my having a patience that makes me patient with 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


                                              28






          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 of their scintillating beauty.

               Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

               Martin Luther King, Jr.




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