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29 December 2008
Letter from Birmingham Jail
From his cell, Dr. King produces a timeless call for justice
This article is excerpted from the book Free At Last: The U.S. Civil Rights Movement, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. View the entire book (PDF, 3.6 MB).
As King languished in his jail cell, he produced one of the most extraordinary documents in the history of American thought. A number of local white clergymen, themselves friendly to King’s long-term objectives, disagreed with his short-term tactics. They published a public statement calling the King-led demonstrations “unwise and untimely,” and they opposed King’s civil disobedience “however technically peaceful those actions may be.”
King’s reply was the Letter From Birmingham Jail. Lacking writing paper, he scribbled in the margins of a newspaper page. King’s handwritten words wrapped around the pest control ads and garden club news, recalled the King aide who smuggled the newsprint out of the jail. Yet those margins held a powerful condemnation of inaction in the face of injustice, and they displayed an extraordinary faith that in America the cause of freedom necessarily would prevail.
King answered the white pastors’ charges with timeless, universal truth. Accused of being an outsider fomenting tension in Birmingham, King replied that, in the face of oppression, there were no outsiders. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” As for the tension: “There is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.” For those who do not themselves suffer from the disease of segregation, King added, no direct action ever seems well timed: “ ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’” No man, he continued, can “set the timetable for another man’s freedom.”
Acknowledging that he and his followers had indeed violated the county court injunction, King cited Saint Augustine’s distinction between just and unjust laws. He asserted that one who breaks an unjust law in order to arouse the consciousness of his community “is in reality expressing the highest respect for law,” provided he acts “openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.” Writing from his cell, King led by example.
From that cell, King believed that in the United States, freedom ultimately would — indeed, must — prevail: “I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle. … We will reach the goal of freedom ... because the goal of America is freedom. … Our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny ... the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. … One day,” King concluded, “the South will recognize its real heroes.”
