Letter from a Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King Jr.

My dear fellow clergy, while confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling my current activities reckless and untimely. I rarely stop to respond to criticism of my work and ideas if I see all the criticism dancing across my desk. The secretaries would have little time during the day for anything other than correspondence and I would have no time for constructive work, but as I believe that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely expressed, I want to try to Reply to your statement and I hope they are patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should state why I am here in Birmingham, as it has been influenced by opinion which opposes the entry of outsiders. I am honored to serve as president of Southern Christian. Leadership Conference is an organization that operates in all the southern states with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, we have about 85 affiliated organizations throughout the south and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. We frequently shared staff educational and financial resources with our members for several months. An affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be available to participate in a non-violent direct action program if necessary, we immediately agreed and when we arrived we kept 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 only as a prophet so century BC abandoned their villages and carried their thus saith the Lord far beyond the limits of their hometowns and just as the apostle Paul left his town of Tarsus and took the gospel of Jesus Christ to the farthest corners of the Greco-Roman world, so I too am compelled to take the gospel of freedom beyond my own hometown, like Paul.

I must respond constantly. to Macedonia's appeal for help, furthermore, I am aware of the interrelationship of all communities and States. I can't sit idly in Atlanta and not worry about what's happening in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice. Everywhere we are caught in an inescapable web of mutuality united in a single garment of destiny everything that affects one directly affects all indirectly you deplore the demonstrations that took place in Birmingham but your statement, I am sorry to say, does not express a similar concern due to the conditions that caused the demonstrations. I am sure one would want to be content with a superficial type of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not address underlying causes.

It is unfortunate that demonstrations took place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure abandoned black people. community without alternative in a nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps gathering facts to determine if there is negotiation self-purification and direct action in judges we have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham there is no denying the fact that racial injustice envelops this community Birmingham is probably the most completely segregated city in the United States its ugly history of brutality is widely known Blacks have experienced grossly unfair treatment in the courts There have been more unsolved bombings of Black homes and churches in Birmingham than anywhere another city In the nation, these are the hard and brutal facts of the case.

Based on these conditions, black leaders attempted to negotiate with the city fathers, who consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiations. Then last September came the opportunity to speak with Birmingham city leaders. economic community during the negotiations, the merchants made certain promises, for example, to remove the stole, humiliating racial signs. Based on 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 passed we realized that we were victims of a broken promise some signs briefly eliminated returned the others remained as in so many past experiences where hopes had been ruined and the shadow of the dove a deep disappointment fell upon us We had no alternative but to prepare for a direct action by which we would present our naked bodies as a means of putting our case before the conscience of the local and national community.

Aware of how difficult was involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We started a series of workshops on non-violence and repeatedly asked ourselves if you are able to accept blows without retaliating, if you are able to withstand the ordeal of prison, we decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that Since, except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year, knowing that their strong economic withdrawal program would be the byproduct of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to pressure merchants for the necessary change, so we It happened to us that the Birmingham mayoral elections March was approaching and we accelerated.

Lee decided to postpone action until after election day, when we discovered that Public Safety Commissioner Youjung Bull Connor had accumulated enough votes to be in the runoff, we again decided to postpone action until the day after election. second round so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues like many others, we hope to see mr. Connor defeated and to this end we endure postponement after postponement after having helped in this community need, we feel that our direct action program could be further delayed, we may wonder why direct action, why sit-ins, marches and so on, is a negotiation. best way you are absolutely right to ask for negotiation, in fact this is the true purpose of direct action.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foment such tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the problem. seeks to dramatize the issue so much that it can no longer be ignored. The fact that I cite the creation of tension as part of the work of nonviolent resistance may sound quite shoc

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, but I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have strongly opposed violence. tension, but that is a constructive and non-violent type of tension that is necessary for growth, just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that the individual could rise from the slavery of myths and half-truths to the unrestricted realm of creativity. objective analysis and evaluation, we must also see the need for Gadd's nonviolent fries to create the kind of tension in society that will help man rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and Brotherhood.

The goal of our action program is to create a situation so full of crisis that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. Therefore, I agree with you and will ask for a negotiation. How long has our beloved Southern man been stuck in a tragic effort to live in monologue instead of dialogue, my friends, I must tell you that we have not made a single advance on civil rights without some legal and non-violent. Unfortunately, it is a historical fact that privileged groups rarely give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals can see the moral life and voluntarily give their privileges. have raised their unjust stance, but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more amoral than individuals, we know from painful experiences that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed, frankly, I still have than ta

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direct action. campaign that was timely in the opinion of those who have not suffered excessively from the disease of segregation for years.

I have heard the word wait, it resonates in the ears of all black people with piercing familiarity. This wait has almost always meant that we never have to come. see with one of our distinguished jurists that justice delayed too long is justice denied we have waited more than 340 years for our constitutional and divine rights the nations of Asia and Africa are moving at jet speed towards political independence, but we are still moving forward with that horse and buggy step to grab a cup of coffee at the lunch counter. Maybe it's easy for those who have never felt the stings of segregation to say "wait," but when you've seen ferocious borrowed mobs, show mothers and fathers at will. and drown your sisters and brothers at will when you have seen hate-filled police officers curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters when you see the vast majority of your twenty million black brothers suffocated in an airtight cage of poverty in the middle of affluent society and suddenly gets tongue-tied and stutters while trying to explain to his six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park they just advertised on television and watches tears streaming down her face. . her eyes when they tell her that the fun city is closed to colored children and she sees sinister clouds of inferiority beginning to grow in her little middle sky and sees her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people when she has You have to make up an answer for your five-year-old son who asks Dad why white people treat colored people so cruelly and you take a cross-country trip and are forced to sleep night after night in uncomfortable corners. from your car because there is no motel. will accept you and you will be humiliated day after day by annoying signs that read in white and your first name becomes your middle name becomes a boy no matter how old you are and your last name becomes John and your wife and your mother will never they receive the respected title. lady. when you are hired by day and tormented at night by the fact that you are black, you constantly live on tiptoe, you never know what to expect next and you are plagued by internal fears and external resentments, when you are always fighting a degrading and degenerate sense of not existing . botanist, then you will understand why it is difficult for us to wait;

There comes a time when the cup of resistance overflows and men must no longer sink into the abyss of despair. I hope, gentlemen, that you understand our legitimate and inevitable impatience. This is certainly a legitimate concern, since as we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling on the law and segregation and public schools, at first glance it may seem quite paradoxical that consciously violating the laws one might well ask how one can 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 defender of obeying just laws, one not only has a legal perspective but also a moral one. responsibility to obey just laws conversely, one has the moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I agree with Saint Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all. What is the difference between the two? How is it determined if the law is fair or unjust? The just law is a man-made code that is in harmony with the moral law of God's law. An unjust law is a code that is not in harmony with the moral law to put it in the terms of st.

Thomas Aquinas and the unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that elevates human personality is unjust. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statues are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality it bestows. a segregated or a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority segregation to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber replaces a relationship i with an identification our relationship and ends up relegating people to the status of things in segregation not only politically, economically and sociologically incorrect, it is morally incorrect and sinful.

Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation, not segregation, and an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his terrible distancing, his terrible sinfulness, which is why I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because is morally right and I can add them to disobeying segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong. Consider a more concrete expression of just and unjust laws and unjust code laws: a majority group of numerical power forcing a minority. group must obey but it is not binding on itself this is a difference made legal but the whole for the same reason is just laws a code that a majority forces tomy Laura to follow and that is that she is willing to follow herself this is equality made legal Let me explain a lot: a law is unjust if it applies to a minority who, as a result of being denied the right to vote, do not participated in enacting our lawmaking, who's to say which Alabama legislature established that law?

State segregation laws were democratically elected throughout Alabama. All kinds of devious methods are used to prevent blacks from becoming registered voters and there are some counties where although blacks make up the majority of the population not a single black is registered, can any law be enacted under such laws ? Circumstances can be considered democratically structured sometimes the law is fair on its face and unfair in its application I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to make in no sense why you advocate evading or defying the law as segregationists would carry to anarchy whoever breaks an unjust law must do so openly, with love and with the willingness to accept the penalty.

I maintain that an individual who breaks the law that his conscience tells him is unjust and who voluntarily accepts a prison sentence in order to raise the conscience of the community about its injustice actually expresses the highest respect for the law, of course, that is nothing new in this type of civil disobedience, it was sublime evidence and the refusal of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego to obey Nebuchadnezzar's laws on the ground. that a higher moral law was at stake, was magnificently practiced by early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire, to some extent academic freedom is a reality today.

Today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience in our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil violence. disobedience we must never forget that everything the adult Hitler did in Germany was legal and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was illegal, it was illegal to help and comfort a Jew and Hitler's Germany, still, I am sure that if I had lived in Germany at the time I would have helped and coveted my Jewish brothers if today I lived in a communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed. He would openly advocate disobeying that country's anti-religious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jew. Brothers, I must first confess that in recent years I have been seriously disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost come to the unfortunate conclusion that the great obstacle to black people and their step towards freedom is not the white citizen councilor of the Ku Klux. Klan ah, 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 and with the objective you seek, but I cannot agree with his methods of direct action who paternalistically believes that he can set the calendar for the freedom of another man who lives according to the mythical concept of time and who constantly advises a black Let him wait for a more convenient season.

Superficial understanding on the part of people of good will is more frustrating than absolute incomprehension on the part of people of ill will, and their lukewarm acceptance is much more disconcerting than total rejection. He hoped that white moderates would understand that law and order exists for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become dangerously structured people. dams that blocked the flow of social progress. I hoped that white moderates would understand that the current tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an odious negative peace in which blacks passively accepted their unjust situation to a substantive, positive peace. and that all men will respect the dignity and value of the human personality.

In reality, we who participate in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We simply bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We take it to Oakland, where it can be. seen and treated as a ball that can never be healed as long as it is covered, but must be open in all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light. Injustice must be exposed with all the tension that its exposure creates in the light of the world. human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be healed.

In your statement you claim that our actions, even if peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence, but is this a logical statement? Is this not like condemning a robbed man because his possession of the money precipitated the evil act of theft, isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unwavering commitment to the truth and his philosophical investigations precipitated the act on the part of the population? wayward in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because God's only consciousness of him? and the fact that never ceasing devotion to the will of God precipitated the evil act of crucifixion, we must come to understand that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to obtain their basic constitutional rights because the search can precipitate violence in society.

He must protect the stolen and punish the thief. He also hoped that white moderates would increasingly reject the myth regarding the freedom struggle. I feel that people of ill will have used time much more effectively than people. of good will we will have to repent in this generation not only for the hateful words and actions of bad people, but also for the atrocious silence of good people. To be coworkers with God and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation, we must use time creatively knowing that it is always the right time to do so now is the time to realize the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood now is the time to elevate our national politics from the shifting sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity, you talk about our activity in Birmingham being extreme in principle.

I was quite disappointed. that my fellow clerics viewed my nonviolent efforts as, oh, and dangerous. 1 is a force of complacency composed in part of blacks who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so devoid of self-respect and the sense that someone is "not defended." to segregation and partly from a few middle class blacks who due to a degree of academic and economic security because they somehow benefit from segregation have become insensitive to the problems of the masses, the other forces one of bitterness and hate and comes dangerously close to advocating violence, is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are emerging across the country, fueled by black frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have They have lost faith in America and have absolutely repudiated Christianity and have come to the conclusion that the white man is an incorrigible demon.

I've tried to stand between these two forces by saying that we don't need to emulate either the do-nothing ISM of complacent law, nor the hate and despair of black nationalists, so it's a more excellent form of love and protest there. violent. I am grateful to God that through the influence of the Black Church the form of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle if this philosophy had not emerged at this point from the hatred and despair of black nationalists. so that is a more excellent form of love and non-violent protest. I am grateful to God that through the influence of the Black Church the form of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.

This philosophy had not emerged on many streets in the world. I am convinced that the word of the South flows blood and I am further convinced that if our white brothers label those of us who employ nonviolent direct action as agitators and outside agitators, they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of blacks They will do it out of frustration and desperation. seek solace and security and black nationalist ideologies, a development that would inevitably lead to a terrifying racial nightmare, the oppressed cannot remain depressed forever, the longing for freedom eventually manifests itself and that is what has happened to the American black, something inside he has reminded him of his birthright. of freedom and something without it has reminded him that it can be won consciously unconsciously consciously he has been trapped by the spirit of the times and with his black brothers from Africa and his brown and yellow brothers from Asia South America and the Caribbean United States The black is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

If one recognizes this vital impulse that has enveloped the black community, one should easily understand that our public demonstrations are taking place. The black man has a lot of repressed resentments and latent frustrations and he must release them, so let him go, let him make prayer pilgrimages to City Hall, let him go on Freedom Rides and try to understand why he must do so if his repressed emotions are not released properly. non-violent, they will seek expression through violence, this is not the case. a threat, but a historical fact, so I have not told my people to get rid of his discontent.

Rather I have tried to say that this normality and aid to discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of non-violent direct action and now this approach I am being called an extremist, but although at first I was disappointed to be classified as an extremist, as I I still think about the matter, gradually I got some satisfaction because the label was not Jesus and extremists for love, love your enemies, bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you and pray for those who use you with contempt and persecute you, it was not Amos and the extremists for justice, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream was not high and the extremists for the Christian gospel I prohibit my body. the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ were not Martin Luther an extremist here I am, I cannot do anything else so help me God it was not John Bunyan an extremist I will be in prison until 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 holds these truths to be self-evident: 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 hatred, terrible love, will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, for the extension of justice in that dramatic scene on the Mount of Calvary, three men were crucified, we must never forget that the three were crucified by the same crime, the crime of extremism to word extremists for their morality and therefore fell below that environment the other Jesus Christ was an extremist for the love of truth and goodness and therefore rose above his environment such Maybe the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists I hoped that white people Moderates would see this need Maybe I was too optimistic Maybe I expected too much I guess I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate longings of the oppressed race and even fewer have the vision to see that injustice.

It must be defeated by strong, persistent and determined action. Let me make note of my other big disappointment. I have been very disappointed in the white church in its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions and I am NOT ignoring them, but despite them. notable exceptions I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed in the church. I'm not saying this is 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 in which he was raised. in his bosom, which has been sustained by his spiritual blessings and will remain faithful to him as long as the cords of life lengthen, when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt to be supported by the white church, but this was never achieved; many ministers felt more cautious than brave and remained solid behind the safety of stained glass despite my shattered dream.

I arrived in Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and would be of moral concern that would serve as a channel through which our righteous grievances could reach the power structure. I hoped each of you would understand Stan, but he has once again let me down. I heard from many others, seven religious leadersadmonish their faithful to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare that they follow this decree because integration is morally correct and because the black is their brother in the midst of a blatant injustice. is inflicted on the black.

I have watched white clergy stand by and mouth pious irrelevances and sanctimonious platitudes in the midst of a powerful struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice. I have heard many men say that they are social issues that do not concern the gospel. I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama Mississippi to every other southern state on sweltering summer days and Chris Alta mornings. I have gazed at the beautiful churches of the South for their lofty spiers pointing heavenward. the impressive contours of a huge religious education building time and time again I have found myself wondering what kind of people worship here who is their God where were their bosses when words of interposition and nullification dripped from Governor Bonnet's lips where were they when governor Wallace gave a wake-up call to defiance and hate where their voices were supportive and bruised and where black men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency the bright hills of creative protest yes these questions are still on my mind with deep disappointment.

I have cried over the laxity of the church, but rest assured, my tears have been tears of love. There can be no disappointment where there is no deep love. Yes, I love church. How could I do it any other way? I am in the unique position of being the son, grandson and great-grandson of preachers, yes I see the church as the body of Christ, but oh how we have stained and marked that body by social neglect and fear of being nonconformists. There was a time when the church was very powerful in those days, the church was not simply a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of the Church. popular opinion, it was a thermostat to transform the mores of society whenever there were Christians in a city the people in power got upset and immediately tried to condemn the Christians for being disturbers of the peace and the external agitators of the Christians pressed and the conviction that they were a colony of heaven called by God to obey God instead of men small in number they were great in commitment they were with God and they were intoxicated to be astronomically intimidated things are different now very often the contemporary church is a weak and ineffective voice with an uncertain sound but the judgment of God is upon the church like never before if the church today does not recover the spirit of sacrifice of its elite it will lose its authentic sound and lose the loyalty of millions and will be discarded as a club irrelevant social meaningless for the 20th century perhaps once again I have been too optimistic its organized religion is too inextricably linked to the status quo To save our nation and the world perhaps I must turn my faith to the spiritual church within, the church within the church as a true ecclesia and the hope of the world, but again I am grateful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken free from the paralyzing chains of conformism and joined us as active partners in the fight for freedom.

They left their safe congregations and walked with us through the streets of Albany, Georgia. They traveled the highways of the south on tortuous journeys for freedom. Yes, they have gone to

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with us, some have been fired from those churches, they have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers, but they have acted in faith that good defeated is stronger than evil, triumphant, their Testimony has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these turbulent times that have carved the tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of despair. I hope that the church as a whole will rise to the challenge of this decisive hour, but even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair for the future I have no fear for the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our reasons are poorly understood today, we will achieve the goal of freedom in Birmingham and throughout the nation because America is abused and despised. we may be that our destiny is tied to the destiny of America before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth we were here before the pen of Jefferson are the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence through the pages of history we were here for more than For two centuries our ancestors worked in this country without wages, made cotton king, built their masters' houses while suffering grave injustices and shameful humiliations, and yet, thanks to bottomless vitality, they continued to prosper and develop without the unspeakable cruelties. of slavery could not stop us from the opposition we now have.

The face will surely fail, we will gain our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of Almighty God are embodied in our resounding demands. I had never written such a long

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before. I'm afraid it's too long to take. Your precious time, I can assure you, would have been much shorter if you had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can you do when you are alone in a cramped cell other than write long

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s, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers? If I have said anything in this letter that exaggerates the truth and indicates unreasonable impatience, I beg your pardon.

If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates that I have a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than the Brotherhood, I beg you. God forgive me. I hope this letter finds you strong in faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon allow me to meet with each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother who has every hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon disappear. and may the deep fog of misunderstanding dissipate from our fear-soaked communities and may in a not-too-distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood shine upon our great nation in full force.

Her dazzling beauty is hers for the cause of peace and brotherhood Martin Luther King Jr.