On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s Birthday: The Letter from the Birmingham Jail Revisited

On this day, the birth­day of Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., I’ve been spend­ing some time read­ing about his life and teach­ings, and lis­ten­ing to excerpts from his most notable speeches and sermons.

While again read­ing his April 16, 1963, let­ter from the Birm­ing­ham jail, I was struck by the time­less­ness of his words and found myself won­der­ing what he would think of the churches of 2007.

In the selec­tion below, where he uses the term “Negro,” sub­sti­tute a descrip­tion of any oppressed group — women (still second-classes cit­i­zens in most main­stream churches), gays, les­bians, trans­gen­dered per­sons — and you will see that his words are as rel­e­vant and accu­rate nearly 47 years later as the day he wrote them.

We know through painful expe­ri­ence that free­dom is never vol­un­tar­ily given by the oppres­sor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action cam­paign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suf­fered unduly from the dis­ease of seg­re­ga­tion. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with pierc­ing famil­iar­ity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our dis­tin­guished jurists, that “jus­tice too long delayed is jus­tice denied.”

…

I have trav­eled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mis­sis­sippi and all the other south­ern states. On swel­ter­ing sum­mer days and crisp autumn morn­ings I have looked at the South’s beau­ti­ful churches with their lofty spires point­ing heav­en­ward. I have beheld the impres­sive out­lines of her mas­sive reli­gious edu­ca­tion build­ings. Over and over 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 Gov­er­nor Wal­lace gave a clar­ion call for defi­ance and hatred? Where were their voices of sup­port when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dun­geons of com­pla­cency to the bright hills of cre­ative protest?”

Yes, these ques­tions are still in my mind. In deep dis­ap­point­ment I have wept over the lax­ity of the church. But be assured 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. 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 through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Chris­tians rejoiced at being 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. When­ever the early Chris­tians entered a town, the peo­ple in power became dis­turbed and imme­di­ately sought to con­vict the Chris­tians for being “dis­turbers of the peace” and “out­side agi­ta­tors.“‘ But the Chris­tians pressed on, in the con­vic­tion that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in num­ber, they were big in com­mit­ment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astro­nom­i­cally intim­i­dated.” By their effort and exam­ple they brought an end to such ancient evils as infan­ti­cide and glad­i­a­to­r­ial contests.

Things are dif­fer­ent now. So often the con­tem­po­rary church is a weak, inef­fec­tual voice with an uncer­tain sound. So often it is an archde­fender of the sta­tus quo. Far from being dis­turbed by the pres­ence of the church, the power struc­ture of the aver­age com­mu­nity is con­soled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.

But the judg­ment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recap­ture the sac­ri­fi­cial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authen­tic­ity, for­feit the loy­alty of mil­lions, and be dis­missed as an irrel­e­vant social club with no mean­ing for the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. Every day I meet young peo­ple whose dis­ap­point­ment with the church has turned into out­right disgust.

Per­haps I have once again been too opti­mistic. Is orga­nized reli­gion too inex­tri­ca­bly bound to the sta­tus quo to save our nation and the world? Per­haps I must turn my faith to the inner spir­i­tual church, the church within the church, as the true ekkle­sia and the hope of the world. 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 down the high­ways of the South on tor­tu­ous rides for free­dom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dis­missed from their churches, have lost the sup­port of their bish­ops and fel­low min­is­ters. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil tri­umphant. Their wit­ness has 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 thechurch 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 motives are at present 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 America’s des­tiny. Before pil­grims landed at Ply­mouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jef­fer­son etched the majes­tic words the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence across the pages of his­tory, we were here. For more than two cen­turies our fore­bears labored in this coun­try with­out wages; they made cot­ton king; they built the homes of their mas­ters while suf­fer­ing gross injus­tice and shame­ful humil­i­a­tion –and yet out of a bot­tom­less vital­ity they con­tin­ued to thrive and develop. If the inex­press­ible cru­el­ties of slav­ery could stop us, the oppo­si­tion we now face will surely fail. We will win our free­dom because the sacred her­itage of our nation and the eter­nal will of God are embod­ied in our echo­ing demands.

…

If I have said any­thing in this let­ter that over­states the truth and indi­cates an unrea­son­able mpa­tience, I beg you to for­give me. If I have said any­thing that under­states the truth and indi­cates my aving a patience that allows me to set­tle for 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 hope that the dark clouds of racial prej­u­dice will soon pass away and the deep fog of mis­un­der­stand­ing will be lifted from our fear drenched com­mu­ni­ties,
and in some not too dis­tant tomor­row the radi­ant stars of love and broth­er­hood will shine over our great nation with all their scin­til­lat­ing beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.

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