TEARS OF LOVE
King, Martin Luther Jr.
Tears of Love A Letter from His Birmingham Jail Cell by MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. During the recent crisis in Birmingham, eight of the leading clergymen of Alabama—Protestant, Catholic, and...
...You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws...
...In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities...
...This would lead to anarchy...
...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...
...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...
...We decided to set our direct action program around the Easter season, realizing that with the exception of Christmas this was the largest shopping period of the year...
...I am here because I have basic organizational ties here...
...But they have gone with the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant...
...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...
...On the other hand, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself...
...So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation...
...My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and non-violent pressure...
...We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom...
...Maybe again I have been too optimistic...
...We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied...
...Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world...
...The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote a remarkable reply in longhand from his jail cell in Birmingham...
...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...
...King's reply available to its readers.—The Editors...
...While Mr...
...I am in Birmingham because injustice is here...
...They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us...
...During the recent crisis in Birmingham, eight of the leading clergymen of Alabama—Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish—issued a formal statement characterizing the Negro protest actions as "unwise and untimely" and urging "our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham...
...The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just laws and there are unjust laws...
...if you will observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together...
...if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys...
...Since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms...
...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...
...Let me give another explanation...
...who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice...
...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...
...We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor...
...There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation...
...I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since I have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders coming in...
...This is certainly a legitimate concern...
...when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait...
...At this time we agreed to begin our non-violent witness the day after the run-off...
...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...
...The signs remained...
...Non-violent 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...
...We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham...
...After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer...
...There can be no gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community...
...The Progressive is delighted to be able to make significant excerpts from Dr...
...There is a more excellent way of love and non-violent protest...
...We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating...
...But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim...
...I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Springhill College several years ago...
...Of course, there are some notable exceptions...
...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 of coffee at a lunch counter...
...Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue, rather than dialogue...
...If this philosophy had not emerged I am convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood...
...The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and comes perilously close to advocating violence...
...I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson, and the great grandson of preachers...
...We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive...
...It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration...
...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 Fun-town 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...
...Actually, we who engage in nonviolent action are not the creators of tension...
...If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws...
...Connor was in the run-off we decided again to postpone action so that the demonstration could not be used to cloud the issues...
...In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence...
...Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification...
...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 practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I, too, am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town...
...Some have been kicked out of their churches, and lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers...
...Never before have I written a letter this long...
...The judgment of God is upon the church as never before...
...As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise...
...This "Wait" has always meant "Never...
...I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood...
...I'm afraid that it is much too long to take your precious time...
...You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme...
...Maybe I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ecclesia and the hope of the world...
...Boutwell is more articulate and gentle than Mr...
...But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being...
...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...
...But, oh, how we have blemished and scarred the body through social neglect and fear of being nonconformists...
...I have tried to stand between these two forces saying that we need not follow the "do-nothingism" of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist...
...Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country...
...Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will...
...They have gone through the highways of the South on torturous rides of freedom...
...It is a memorable document which proclaims and explains'many of the enduring principles of the current struggle...
...You are exactly right in your call for negotiation...
...All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soiil and damages the personality...
...I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust...
...Where were they when Governor Wallace gave the clarion call for defiance and hatred...
...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...
...Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ...
...We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with...
...Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws...
...In deep disappointment, I have wept over the laxity of the church...
...It is expressed in various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement...
...These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts...
...I'm sorry that I can't join you in your praise for the police department...
...who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action...
...But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future...
...How could I do otherwise...
...I would agree with Saint Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all...
...First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate...
...Some have asked, "Why didn't you give the new [city] administration time to act...
...If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me...
...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...
...There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love...
...I love her sacred walls...
...Connor defeated...
...It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity...
...We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr...
...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 direct action, and refuse to support our non-violent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare...
...when you see the vast majority of your 20,000,000 Negro brothers smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society...
...This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination...
...One day the South will recognize its real heroes...
...These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws...
...who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom...
...I say it as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church, who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen...
...So we had no alternative 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...
...Over and over again I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here...
...You may well ask, "Why direct action...
...On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttles-worth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations...
...At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my non-violent efforts as those of the extremist...
...But can this assertion be logically made...
...But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation...
...I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers...
...I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue...
...Self-purification...
...We must see the need of having non-violent gadflies to create the kind of tension 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 we decided to go through a process of self-purification...
...I must close now...
...it must be demanded by the oppressed...
...Like so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadows of a deep disappointment settled upon us...
...One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely...
...if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls...
...I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother...
...Isn't negotiation a better path...
...We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our Constitutional and God-given rights...
...Any law that uplifts human personality is just...
...I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality...
...When we discovered that Mr...
...For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit...
...Who is their God...
...Where were their voices of support when tired, bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest...
...We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation...
...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...
...An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself...
...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...
...But be assured that my tears have been tears of love...
...I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "Wait...
...For years now I have heard the word "Wait...
...On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers...
...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 the disease of segregation...
...Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community...
...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 merchants for the needed changes...
...when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity...
...In any non-violent campaign there are four basic steps: Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive...
...Direct action...
...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, non-violent Negroes...
...It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored...
...We, too, wanted to see Mr...
...If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me...
...I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community...
...We can never forget that everything Hitler did was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal...
...Yes, they have gone to jail with us...
...I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of non-violence entered our struggle...
...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, "Mrs...
...This is difference made legal...
...One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others...
...But before closing I am impelled to mention one other point in your statement that troubled me profoundly...
...Any law that degrades human personality is unjust...
...Connor, they are both segregationists dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo...
...Negotiation...
...It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany...
...Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham...
...In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores...
...Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality...
...I hope you can see the distinction I am trying to point out...
...when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" men and "colored...
...Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action...
...I am here, along with several members of my staff, because we were invited here...
...so we went through postponement after postponement to aid in this community need...
...Yours for the cause of peace and brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr...
...So I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong...
...Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail...
...Why sit-ins, marches, etc...
...I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour...
...I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a non-segregated basis...
...Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection...
...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 television screaming "nigger, nigger, nigger"), and with a willingness to accept the penalty...
...But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church...
...Let me rush on to mention my other disappointment...
...I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice...
...I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church...
...Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected...
...We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved...
...Then it occurred to us that the March election was ahead and so we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day...
...Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid . . . You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham...
...who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season...
...You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence...
...Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States...
...These are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application...
...Now there is nothing wrong with an ordinance that 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...
...This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action...
...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, on the other hand, 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...
...Yes, I love the church...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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 his injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law...
...Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery...
...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 community with no other alternative...
...This is sameness made legal...
...In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do...
...I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership...
Vol. 27 • July 1963 • No. 7
