Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most influential black civil rights activists, wrote a letter on April 16, 1963, when he was imprisoned for civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama.
The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is considered one of the most important writings on the American civil rights movement.[1] King’s letter is a powerful defence of the non-violent struggle he espoused against racism and racial segregation in American society.
Martin Luther King Jr. led a series of non-violent protests organised by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to address racial segregation in Alabama in the 1960s. King had served as the president of SCLC, which operated across all Southern states and over 85 affiliation organisations.
He was arrested on April 12, 1963, for violating a court injunction against public protest demonstrations. However, his arrest came at a time during the broader crackdown on all protests against racial segregation.
King wrote the letter in response to a public statement issued by several white Alabama clergymen. These clergymen represented various Christian denominations and called King’s “unwise and untimely”. Further, they argued that all struggles against Black rights must be pursued through the courts.
King begins his letter with a brief description of what a nonviolent campaign entails. He writes that “there are four basic steps: 1. Collection of facts to determine whether injustice are alive; 2. Negotiation; 3. Self-purification; and 4. Direct action”.[2] However, in Birmingham, Luther recounts:
Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the 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 in any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable 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.
Having failed to meet with the other three aspects, King resorted to direct action as an important aspect of a nonviolent demonstration. Why direct action? One may ask.
Luther writes: “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without 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 give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
Writing about what it means to seek freedom in the face of violent oppression, Martin Luther King Jr. writes, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
The Blacks have had to wait for a long time. And they have only been told to “wait”, he writes. However, this “wait” has come to mean “never”. And if justice is delayed for this long, then it is merely a representation of how far a society can go to deny justice to the Blacks.
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
Here, King notes that the civil rights movement must become impatient, and the time to wait has gone. He suggests that there is no better time than now for the oppressed to act decisively against their oppressor group—the Whites.
However, for King, non-violence is paramount to any struggle against racial segregation. Non-violence is a powerful symbol of resistance. King writes:
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 20 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 the 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 distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?” when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” men and “colored” when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title of “Mrs.” when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a 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 difficult to wait.
King expresses his grave disappointment with the moderate Whites, who prefer order over justice. He writes: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ ‘Councilor’ or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action’ who paternistically 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.’”
For King, the shallowness of moderate people with goodwill is more frustrating than the absolute misunderstanding of ill people. And that to consider the actions of nonviolence as extremist is even more unfortunate.
King expresses that he had hoped the white people would see the justice of their cause and address (and even get rid of) the racial hierarchies and discriminations that are put forth in American society.[3]
In the letter, Martin Luther King Jr. reflected on the broader implications of nonviolent struggle against racial discrimination. He emphasised that these issues concern not just African Americans but also the whole American society.
The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is one of the celebrated texts on the civil rights movement. His letter continues as a powerful defence of nonviolent movements worldwide and influences people to fight for social injustices.
References:
[1] “Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.],” accessed August 18, 2024, https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.
[2] On nonviolent protests, see Nicolas Urick, “Nonviolent Civil Resistance and Cultural Preservation: The Case of Algeria – Peace and Justice Studies Association,” February 14, 2023, https://www.peacejusticestudies.org/chronicle/nonviolent-civil-resistance-and-cultural-preservation-the-case-of-algeria/; Ornit Shani, “Gandhi’s Salt March: Paradoxes and Tensions in the Memory of Nonviolent Struggle in India,” in Cultural Memories of Nonviolent Struggles: Powerful Times, ed. Anna Reading and Tamar Katriel (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), 32–51, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137032720_2.
[3] “Review of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Lies That Divide Us – Adarsh Badri,” September 27, 2020, https://adarshbadri.me/book-review/caste-by-isabel-wilkerson-review/.
Cover Photo: By Rowland Scherman/ Adam Cuerden – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, Link