American Protest Literature

ROBERT GRANAT

Montgomery:

Reflections of a Loving Alien

1956

al of Rosa Parks (1913-2005) in November 2005, Bill Clinton said that At the funer . , en he fi rst met Parks he thought of Abraham Lincoln s purported comment to Harriet

: cher Stowe: "So this is the little lady who started the great war." The civil-rights war ~often considered to have begun on December 1, 1955, when Parks was arrested for vi- olating Montgomery's bus segregation laws. She was sitting in the first seat of the "col- ored section" of a bus, and the white section was full. The white driver asked her to give up her seat and she refused. Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, "was tired of being pushed around," as she recalled; "I was not tired physically ... the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. " Martin Luther King, Jr., called her "a victim of .. . the forces of destiny," though Parks had resisted segregation before and was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) secretary in Montgomery.

Another important character in the Montgomery story was Edgar D. Nixon, a former NAACP state president. On the night of December 1, after Parks's arrest, he thought, 'Why not ask the Negroes in Montgomery to stand up and be counted?" He had long believed that "one person could kindle a spark that might cause others to see light and work." The following day he helped form the Montgomery Improvement Association, which elected King as president, adopted the official slogan "Justice without Violence," a nd

di st

ri buted a leaflet asking African Americans to stay off the buses. King was initially re luctant to join Nixon but decided God was using Montgomery as a proving ground. ~ver

th e next 381 days, 75 percent of the bus company's business, some 50,000 black nd

ers, boycotted its buses. In April 1956 King proclaimed: "In Montgomery we walk in a new Vvay · · · The Southern Negro has come of age, politically and morally," and on De- cember

2 0, 1956, the Supreme Court declared Montgomery's bus segregation illegal.

The Poet Gwendolyn Brooks paid tribute to Nixon: "He induced, it seems, Reverend King lo lake hi I . . Th

5 P ace as ch1der, cherisher, champion."

the .. r:ug~out the bus boycott, supporters referred to the Declaration of lndependen~e, w nlinished business" of the Civil War and the civil disobediences of the lnduStnal Orkers of th w ' d Some s e orld. They compared Montgomery to Lexington and Concor · Pugge

st ed

th at America's fight against communism abroad was hampered by racial op-

ression at h b ·stence far ome. In the magazine piece reprinted here, Robert Granat, a su SI

fl'ler, sees a · • · · ·t e had no ho n integrated society on the horizon "Why would we cnt1etze 1 w Pe if We d'd . f 1955· "I '

1 not love?" he asks, echoing lames Baldwin's famous statement O •

337

340

...

Civil Rights and Black Liberation / THE LITERATURE

to each other. We could see that capitalism is wron . g. It Shift external circumstances and to hell with the inner ff s the e ects· . eniPh. from effort to reward, from quality to quantity Th ' it Shifts as181 . · e gene . th. o in the J930's especially, may have been hoodwinked b ration bef e \latuei . I y the 'd ore nism. But my generat10n scarce y got a chance to . 1 ea of llline . . t ·t 1· get d1si1Ju . Con-. ' that communism was 1us cap1 a ism with different a s1onect. ·••lllu. both of these colossi. p nts on. We We saw reiecteo

Blackboard Jungle

Th lienation of the generation after mine is more pointed Th ea · ey seem me aware at ten years of age of things we discovered at twenty to be.

co . . . . Wherea were characterized by apathy, half-heartedness, mh1hsm and confu . s We are more violent in their rejection. We felt a little guilty, they do sion, they

h t h . . 1 not. They smoke reefers, they rob, t ey are a ome m v10 ence. These children of our future: what's going to help them and us7 A 1. . . · n a 1encan

see this more clearly than the school prmc1pals and the probation offi cers. Not more playgrounds, not more amusements. In a society too busy grubbing for funds to pay for its luxuries; in a society seduced by the ad-man's glittering set of values; they get in society's way. There is no time. What do the ad-men say to do for the kids? Buy them off, get them stuff, give them fun. This, of course, is a lie. What they need is to be loved-recognized would be a better word-to have a useful function in society. The kids know what's up, and the aliens are on the increase. We may be producing a whole generation of aliens, though not necessarily loving ones. How to spread love and respect and a sense of value is our problem.

Even Henry Luce has admitted at times that the popular respect for enter• prise and work, which gave this country its vitality, is now changing into a_re• spect for consumption and rewards. It's still o.k. to get something by working for it. But if you can get it without working, by cheating in an accepted way, better yet. This is the order of the day. The students terrorizing their teachers

. Th E mumbhng e mperor is obviously naked. The social fathers never say a s

word · th b {tier reason · ' ei er ecause they fear, or are truly ignorant, or else for era . 1 But th I' J h' g sttnkS· e itt e boys in the juvenile courts shout right out. Somet 10

The Way Back ofhiS din tw0 are of Go raY 01 For myself, I must confess that I believe in God. I am aw infinite ar r·

. erse the tral ne aspects. First, in the orderliness and beauty of the umv ' f rnY cen . kings o marvels, from the mathematics of galaxies to the wor

Robert Granat \ Montgomery

th e beauty of grasshoppers to the beauty of the moth

115 systerTl, dlY since to be aware only of his forms would not be eno h 1

vo . secon , . ug , ff sprtflg. f hirn internally. I feel him as a need to act with love· t o ware o , o act

"' also a ss as a yearning for a pure joy that the senses and the . d aw elftshne , . mm .,,

1 11out s ower to give me. I feel him as an inner knowledge of p f

p e~P fl~ 't 11av . don d a hunger after it. . . . .

uon ao . k things are rotten beyond savmg. I thmk 1t 1s possible that with 't thlfl . · I dofl hter of most of us we can learn to re1ect the scientist as holy-man

' 0 utt hilosopher, the super seller and the super-buyer as folk heroes

d rnan as p . we a · hope in the genes of this country than in any other in history is more ' 'fllere 'bly India. The spirit of freedom is still there. We've got it and many

ept poSSI exc dical have got it. But we drowse and make payments on our new hers Jess ra . . ot while the bully-boys of active ignorance are out scrimmaging

. 1 l·ve you loving aliens, keep hard and keep pushing at the truth

J(eep a I ' . I t h

ate take you over and petrify your souls. Act with love and guard von't e . . . tegrity we are commg mto a season that breeds prophets. For inevita- your iO • bly, whenever the people get lost, men are born to point the way back. And out of the aliens, the prophets will come. Not the prophets of doom and destruc- tion, but prophets of the way of love and peace, pointing to a positive inte- grated society where only fear, exploitation and hate will be alien.

341

342

JAMES 'BALDWIN

My Dungeon Shook

1962

63 the writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) was heralded as a l0th-ln 19 , . . . . century F I nd the voice of AfrJCan Americans. His book The Fire Next .,.. h" rectenc' Doug ass a '1me 1t the b '

I. d he began to advise President Kennedy, as Douglass had Pres"d . estseller 1sts an I ent Lincol h.1 Baldwin called the writer a "disturber of the peace" and was activ . n. But, w I e ,, ,, . . e 1n the civil .

vement he rejected the term spokesman, explaining that to be th ,, nghts mo , e represen . of some thirteen million people," like fellow protest artist Richard Wright, was ,, lative

· "bl " , a false re-sponsibility .. . and 1mposs1 e. Instead Baldwin believed that he had to "excavate and recreate hist~rv,, d

• • 1 ' an that this meant recreating his own experience. There had been no language for the "horro

' l"f " h .d th " . f h. · · rs of the American Negro s I e, e sa1 - e privacy o 1s experience" had been denied- and so Baldwin wrote confessional autobiography. The Fire Next Time is a highly personal call to intimacy and love. He asks blacks and whites to create America's· consciousness "like lovers" in order to "end the racial nightmare." The love he proposes is mystical, and he writes as prophet throughout, in the tradition of David Walker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eugene Debs and Martin Luther King, Jr. He offers a narrative of conversion, like Upton Sinclair in The Jungle (1906) and John Steinbeck at the end of The Grapes of Wrath (1939}-though while Steinbeck secularizes religious experience, Baldwin sanctifies soci• ety. Art is spiritual expression, divinity is more important than doctrine, and self-will and God's will are intertwined.

As the nation's conscience Baldwin holds up what he calls "the rainbow sign," his vi- sion of a harmoniously blended society. This vision of interdependence means, as he put it in l 961, that "one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself." In the book's first part, "My Dungeon Shook," Baldwin uses the letter form to bridge the distance between self and 0ther. It suggests t· · • . · and asks each a con mumg involvement from a place of racial exile in America, · d' "d . ldwin's paSt m ivi ual reader to become the letter's addressee. The letter also connects Ba and pres t I • the same age en se ves. It 1s addressed to his nephew and namesake, who was . .

1 a

as Bald · , . • but1t1sasa wins autobiographical self in the opening of the book's second part, letter to his y ounger self-from James to Jimmy.

Further readi . D . Stealing the fire (1989). ng. avid Leeming, James Baldwin (1994); Horace Porter,

James Baldwin J My Dungeon Shook

Ja rtles: . 1 tter five times and tom it up five times. I keep seeing ear n tnis e your

0 ave pegu tne face of your father and my brother. Like him you ar I h h iS aJso . h d fi . ' e wlJiC ble moody-wit a very e mte tendency to sound t face, vuJnera , . ruc- gll, dark, want no one to thmk you are soft. You may be like your ,oo se you . 1 nt vecau . 1 don't know, but certam y both you and your father 01e r in tnis, . re- ndfathe en physically. Well, he 1s dead, he never saw you and h gra . very mu , e

01ble 111rn . • ne was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom se rible life, . . . had a ter Jly believed what white people said about him. This is one of ,, rt he rea ofnis!Jea ' he became so holy. I am sure that your father has told you

ns tnat we reaso t II tnat. Neither you nor your father exhibit any tendency to-·ng aboU a 5001etll1 . . u really are of another era, part of what happened when the

11011ness. yo wards 1 . Frazier called "the cities of destruction." You can only be de-

E Frank in . late · 1. v,·ng that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. 1 tell edbybe ,e str0Y e I love you and please don't forget it. ou tllis becaus , . . Y k wn both of you all your hves, have earned your Daddy in my arms ]have no . .

houlders kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. and on mys ' , k ow if you've known anybody from that far back; if you've loved any- ] don t n body that Jong, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man, you gain a strange perspective on time and human pain and effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, for behind your father's face as it is today are all those other faces which were his. Let him laugh and I see a cellar your father does not remember and a house he does not remember and I hear in his present laughter his laughter as a child. Let him curse and I re- member him falling down the cellar steps, and howling, and I remember, with pain, his tears, which my hand or your grandmother's so easily wiped away. But no one's hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs. I know what the wor!d has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my coun- try and my co t · ·11 un rymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history wi ever forgive the h m, t at they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thou- sands of liv • ct d es and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, tn-

ee one must . . t. stnve to become tough and philosophical concerning destruc-1on and ct , hav h eath' for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we

e earct of · d) But it • man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankin · is not pe · • 1 b · o cent It. rmtsSible that the authors of devastation should a so e mn ·

. is the in Now m nocence which constitutes the crime.

' Y dear n · eople your country amesake, these innocent and weJI-meamng P ' llloved fmen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far re-

rom tho d . . d f more se escnbed for us by Charles Dickens m the Lon on °

343

344

d Black Liberation / THE LITERATURE Civil Rights an

d d years ago. (I hear the chorus of the innocent than a hun re ,, s scream· • 1 How bitter you are! -but I am writing this I Ing, .. , , This 1s not true. etter to 1•01

metbing about bow to handle them, for most of th You, tot to tell you so . . em d I}' that you exist. I know the cond1t10ns, under Which O not Yet really know You w

h Your countrymen were not there, and haven't ere born for I was t ere. made it , d ther was also there, and no one has ever accused her f b . Yet. Yo11r gran mo . . , 0 e1ng b·

hat the innocents check with her. She 1sn t hard to find " 1tte1.1 suggest t • ,our co d 't know that she exists, either, though she has been wo ki Untry. men on r ng forth

all their lives.) ern W 11 you were born, here you came, something like fourteen e , years ago• a

though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about th · nd · t · e streets

through which they were carrymg you, s anng at the walls into h" w 1ch the brought you, had every reason to be heavyhearted, yet they were not F Y

. · or here you were, Big James, named for me-you were a big baby, I was not-here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that: I know how black it looks to- day, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children's children.

This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it in- tended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born, and faced the future that you faced be- cause you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were e~- pected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, m

h - Wgo~ your s ort time on this earth you have been told where you cou ' d ·t and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could 0.1 e

whom yo Id t agree with JJl u cou marry. I know that your countrymen do no J-1 . about this, and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know_ ar lem and I d s . · Juding mine-

, 0 · 0 do you. Take no one's word for anythmg, me you but trust yo . kn w whence

ur expenence. Know whence you came. If you O bolsof came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and syrn wnite your life have b 1·eve what

een deliberately constructed to make you be 1 weuas people say ab b reve, as

h out you. Please try to remember that what they e 1 . ,.;iybU1

w at they do d infenO•• to th . . an cause you to endure, does not testify to your bougb 1ne

e,r mhuma ·ty J es t • stor h' 01 and fear. Please try to be clear, dear am '. .. ,)1icnl1es

m w 1ch rag b ahty" es a out your youthful head today, about the re

James Baldwin / My Dungeon Shook

ceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to wordsac . .

niod 1ne . eople and there 1s no basis whatever for their impertinent be 'ke white P becorlle It they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy is , a550r11pt1 ept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept rnust ace . 111at yo11 t them with Jove. For these mnocent people have no other

and accep d · h" t h" h h t]Jerll ·n effect, still trappe m a 1s ory w 1c t ey do not under- 'fheY are, '

0ope- .1 they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have d· and untI . stao , . f so many years, and for mnumerable reasons, that black men beheve or

nad to . bite men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will . tenor tow

are 10 1 find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be d·scover, peop e . . . . 1 • d d to be committed 1s to be m danger. In this case, the danger, in

mmitte , an co . d f most white Americans, is the loss of identity. Try to imagine how the r1110 so

Id feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the you wou fl e You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. -a~- . . . .

heaval in the universe 1s temfying because 1t so profoundly attacks Any up one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid. J said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never be- ing allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, de- feated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers-your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from real- ity aod begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it· great h d . . . • men ave one great thmgs here, and WIii agam, and we can make Amer" h . ica w at Amenca must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from t d . s ur Y, peasant stock men who picked cotton and dammed nvers and built r ·1 . , . u a, roads, and m the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an nassailable d . so an monumental dignity. You come from a long !me of poets,

. thought 1

greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I was lost M d . You kn ' Y ungeon shook and my chams fell off.

freect ow, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of ~ 0~h d f Goct bl un red years too soon. We cannot be free until they are ree.

ess You J y, ' ames, and Godspeed. our uncle J , ames

345

346

MARTIN LUTHER KING~ JR

From Letter from Birmingham J au

1963

d F .d y 1963 the Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr (l 9 on Goo n a , ' . . ' · 29-196 f . n Americans on a protest march through Birmingham Al b 8) led lift.. three A rica . . , a arna A .. ,,.

Were arrested eight white clergymen published a letter 11. • fter all t• protesters ' . ca 1ng sue ,,e . unwise untimely, and extreme. King responded from i·a·il . h defllon strat1ons , . ,, , With the

1 •

er ted here. Based in part on his sermon of 1956, Pauls Letter to the . etter ex. c p . I . ·1 d" b d" Arnencan C . ,, •t i·ustifies the need for nonv10 ent c1v1 1so e 1ence against un· hn~ trans, r . . . Just laws

H. letter follows the pattern of exordtum (introduction) expo~ito ( · rs . . ' exposition) ,·,matio (argument), confutat10 (rebuttal) and perorat,o ( conclusion) th , con. ~- gether around the clergymen's points. He establishes goodwill, mention h" en to. . s rs reputati and common-knowledge facts, relentlessly defines and redefines the clerg , on

. Ymen s tenns and works out cause and effect. Only after laying a groundwork of logic and h"I ' P I osoph~ does he shift to pathos and personal appeal. ,

King always used the Bible as an instrument of liberty and infused his speeches With the language of the black church and slave spirituals. His l~tter appeals to moral authon. ties in the Jewish and Christian traditions ( one of the eight people he was addressing was a rabbi). He calls on the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, and quotes or refers to Daniel 3, Matthew 5:44, and Galatians 6:17. He explains he was "compelled" to act, like the apostle Paul, and sets the demon- stration in an American but also a Christian tradition of civil disobedience. He adds new characters to the American pantheon of heroes-like James Meredith, who in 1962 had become the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. Then he ends with a call to action.

Two months later, President Kennedy introduced a civil rights bill-in response, he said, to "cries for equality" from the streets of Birmingham. King's letter had explained th t "th · · t "Now Ken-a e creation of tension" was "part of the work of the nonviolent-res1s er. . , nedy echoed him: "Redress is sought in the streets, in ... protests which create tensions. K' · · N b I PeacePnze rng continued to write and speak on civil rights and was awarded the O } . in 1964 I A ·1 'k by the city's · n pn 1968 he went to Memphis Tennessee to support a stn e 'k s . . ' ' . " h: 'Lie an,tatron workers. On April 3, he gave his "I've Been to the Mountaintop speec w anybody, I would like to live a long life" he said "But I'm not concerned about thatndo,V

I h ' · 11 wing a,, · · · ave seen the promised land ... I may not get there with you." The fo O s·ience,' ehxactly a_year after he'd spoken out against the Vietnam war in "A Time to Break46'people e was killed by · A other

d. . a sniper's bullet as he stepped onto his motel balcony. n red rn riots th t a erupted across 125 cities.

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Letter from Birmingh J . am ad 347 Branch Parting the Waters (1988); Clayborne Carson Th A . Taylor ' , e uto-

readlng- . L ther King, Jr. (1998). rt~er rMarttn u ____________________ _ f\iogrophY o

April 16, 1963

r feUoW Clergymen: B' . h ·ty . ·1 I MY pea d here in the ummg am c1 1a1 , came across your re- ·1 confine . ·t· " . d w111 e t calling my present act1v1 1es unwise an untimely" ... 1 am in

centstaternen ecause injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth cen- Birrningharn bh . villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond

Jeft t e1r . wrY s.c. . f their home towns, and 1ust as the Apostle Paul left his village

octanes o the boU ied the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far comers of the Greco-us and carr ofTars d O am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my an worl 's RoJJJ n Like Paul I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call own hOme toW . '

foraid. 1 am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and Moreover, I nnot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what hap-states. ca . . . .

pens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere 1s 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. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds ... You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Non- violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored .. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension " I h f · ave earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type o con- structive . 1 ' nonv,o ent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it · · 'd I was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that md1v1 ua s COUid rise f al f rom the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered re m o creative a I . f . 1 na ysis and objective appraisal so must we see the need or nonvi-o ent gadfli ' . . fr es to create the kind of tension in society that will help men nse om the dark d . - - · f d -stand· epths of pre1udice and racism to the ma1est1c heights O un er T ing and brotherhood.

he Purpos f . • · crisis-Pack d e O our duect-action program is to create a situation so e that it Will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur

........

. hts and Black Liberation I THE LITERATURE Civil Rig

. your call for negotiation. Too long has with you 10 . . . • our •bel d down in a tragic effort to hve m mono! . 0 ved So been bogge . . ogue r \ith1

W e knOW through painful expenence that fr ather th iltid

10 gue . . . eectom . an d . . n by the oppressor; it must be demanded by th ts never la.

tanly give e oppr v01

t to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ,, essect. Fra un. ~ -. f those who have not suffered unduly from the ct· timed". ,I view o ,, . ,, 1sease of lt\ th

F ears now J have heard the word Wait! It rings in th segrega, e or y . ,, . ,, h e ear of ••on

·th piercing familiarity. This Watt as almost always every Ne · wi . . . . . meant "N gr0

t come to see, with one of our d1stmgmshed Jurists th ,, . ever.• \II mus . . ,, , at JUStite e delayed is justice demed. , too long

We have waited for more than 340 years for our consrtu . , • ' . . . 1 tionaJ g iven rights The nations of Asia and Africa are moving With . anct GO(! . . . . . , Jet-likes .

ward gaining pohtical independence, but we stiff creep at h Peed to. orse-anct b

P ace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perh . . · uggy aps 1t 1s e

those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to ,, _asyfor . . say, Wait " 8 when you have seen vic10us mobs lynch your mothers and fath · ut . ers at Will a drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen h t

nd a e-fillect

!icemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters· wh po. , en you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothen·ng • · manair. tight 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 P~?lic amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Fun town is closed to colored children, and see ominolll clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental,sky, and see her be· ginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness to- ward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, wjly 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

d . " h" b "n1·gger • your rea mg w 1te11 and "colored"; when your first name ecomes

1

middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your laSt name~ comes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected tttl "M ,, h h fact that you

rs. ; w en you are harried by day and haunted by night by t e . N

. . . · gwhatto fX are a egro, hvmg constantly at tiptoe stance never qmte knOWiO u ' -when Y0 pect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments, ·u un· are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"-then you WI of d

erStand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a, time when . to the endurance · b plunged

10 runs over, and men are no longer willing to e avoid·

abyss of de · I • · ate and un . spau. hope, sirs, you can understand our Jegttlrfl able impatience.

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Letter from Birm• h . mg amJall 349 t deal of anxiety over our willingness to break Ia Th" . ss a grea ws. 1s 1s

., e)(pre . . te concern. Since we so diligently urge people to ob h ,o Iegiurna . . ey t e tainlY a , decision of 1954 outlawmg segregation in the public sch 1

cer court s . oo s,

P re!lle . y seem rather paradoXIcal for us consciously to break 1 su ce 1t rna aws. ftrst gJan k· "HOW can you advocate breaking some Jaws and obe .

at well as • ymg one inaY wer ues in the fact that there are two types of laws: just a d ?" rne ans b . . n others- d be the first to advocate o eymg 1ust laws. One has not onl 1

woul . . Ya uniust- 1

responsibiltty to obey JUSt laws. Conversely, one has a moral ta rnora Jegal bU . . disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an

011sibthlY to ,, resp ·s no Jaw at all. . t1aW • h ? un1us . the difference between t e two . How does one determine w wnat 1s . . N° 1

1 is ,·ust or unjust? A iust law 1s a man-made code that squares

. . whe 1

Jaw or the Jaw of God. An unJust law 1s a code that is out of har- ·th the rnora . . WI .

111 tile moral Jaw. To put 1t m the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An un-

rnonY wi_ human Jaw that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any ·ust 1aw is a I plifts human personality is just. Any Jaw that degrades human per- P u . .

I . •s uni·ust. All segregat10n statutes are uniust because segregation dis-

sona 1ty 1 tori the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic sepa- ration, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong ...

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law ~as at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were will- mg to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks ralher than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, aca- demic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our ow • f · ·1 d" n nat10n, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act o civi is- obedience.

Wesho Id "le ,, u never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was · gal and ev . . • "ille-g

1 ,, erythmg the Hungarian freedom fighters did m Hungary was

s:i !twas "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, 1 am

for: that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and com· ect my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where cer-

350 d Black Liberation I THE LITERATURE Civil Rights an

. 1 dear to the Christian faith are suppressed 1 . ·nc1p es , WouJd tain pn . that country's antireligious laws . . . . 0Penty a cate disobeying . ~vo.

t ment you assert that our actions, even though In your sta e . . . . Peacefu d because they prec1p1tate VIOience. But 1s this 1 . I, llltist condemne a 0gtcaJ

. J"ke condemning a robbed man because his possess· asseltio Isn't this I ion of n1 . . d the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning S llloney Pt · op1tate . . @crate e. . erving commitment to truth and his ph1losophicaJ . s beca, ... his unsw . . . inquiries ...,

d the act by the misgmded populace ID which they made h· PreCipi . . . k? 1 n't this like condemnlDg Jesus because his unique God nk hell!. Joe . s . , . . . ·conSCio d never-ceasing devot10n to Gods will prec1p1tated ,the evi·i Usness m

fi . n? We must come to see that, as the federal courts ha C!ua. ~- . .. w~ ffirmed it is wrong to urge an 1Dd1v1dual to cease his efforts to . tenuy a ' . . gainhisb . constitutional rights because the quest may prec1p1tate violence So . as,c

. • c1ety rn115t protect the robbed and pumsh the robber ... You speak of our aCtiVi . A fi t I th d. . tyinBir-mingham as extreme. t rs was ra er 1sappo1Dted that fellow 1 c ergyrnen

would see my nonviolent ~fforts a~ those of an extremist: J began thinkin about the fact that I stand ID the middle of two opposin'g forces in th N g e egr0 community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes wh o,ai a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic secu. rity and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensi- tive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and ha- tred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nour- ished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimi· nation, this movement is made up of people who have Jost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded lhat the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I h . . 'd emulate ave tned to stand between these two forces, say1Dg that we nee . neither the "do-nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and 'despauof the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of Jove and nonVIO- lent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. th

If th· h. f the sou is P ilosophy had not emerged, by now many. streets O . ced would, 1 am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further co~vin ~• that if our wh ·t b . d ,, tside agitato 1 e rothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" an ou part those of us wh . fuse to sup 0 employ nonviolent direct action, and if they re d despair, our nonviole t ff · nan n e orts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustratIO 1 1h11 seek solace a d . d Joprnen n secunty in black-nationalist ideologies a eve would inevitabl I . Y ead to a fnghtening racial nightmare.

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Letter from Birmingham Jail

I cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for free-d peop e Presse ·ifests itself, and that is what has happened to the Ameri· . . . . - eventua h. g within has rem1Dded him of his buthright of freedom

dofll sornet m . . . , r,Jegro- . hout has remmded him that 1t can be gained. Consciously

,an hing wit . . d 50rnet he has been caught up by the Ze1tge1st, and with his black an ciously, b uncons . nd his brown and yellow rothers of Asia, South America or f Afnca a . . . brotners O • the United States Negro 1s movmg with a sense of great ur-

canbbean, . . . and tile h promised land of racial Justice. If one recognizes this vital ward t e .

gen0' to ulfed the Negro commumty, one should readily understand ]lat has eng urge t nstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up re- ubliC demo wllY P d I tent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march· ents an a . . ' sentrn yer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides . rnake pra

Jet nirn d stand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not re- ry to un er and t ·oJent ways they will seek expression through violence; this is sed in nonv1 , .

lea t but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of not a threa . .

d . ntent ,, Rather I have tned to say that this normal and healthy dis-our ,sco . ,

Y t an be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. conten c And now this approach is being termed extremist.

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as 1 continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satis- faction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for Jove: "Love your ene- mies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an ex- tremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an ex- tremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bun- yan: "I will stay in jail to 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: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, ~ill~ . are created equal . .. " So the question is not whether we will be ex- tremists but h k. . ' w at 1Dd of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? w· II . · 1 we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the ex- tension of · . . JUSlice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were C!uc1fied w Cr" • e must never forget that all three were crucified for the same

1me-the c · . . . fell b nme of extremism. Two were extremists for 1mmorahty, and thus elow th · · · f Iov eu environment. The other Jesus Christ was an extrem1St or e, truth ' ' the s and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps outh, the n t· . . t We w·i, a ion and the world are in dire need of creative extremis s · 1 reach th · b cause th e goal of freedom in Birmingham, and all over the nation, e-

e goal of A · • h be our de t· . menca 1s freedom. Abused and scorned thoug we may , s 1ny 1s r d d t led up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims Ian e a

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Ila

. d Black Liberation I THE LITERATURE civil Rights an

were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched h pJymouth, we t e rn . t. n of Independence across the pages of h' a1estic of the Qeclara 10 • !Story, IV 1v0%

h two centunes our forebears labored in th· e Wereh for more t an . is cou ere h made cotton king; they built the homes of their ntry With .

wages; t ey ful h .1. . rnasters Oiit . i·ustice and shame um1 iat10n-and yet While fering gross m . out of a ho su1. . h continued to thnve and develop. If the inexp . ttOl1]1 vitahty t ey . . ress1ble c ~1

Ould not stop us, the oppos1t10n we now face wil) s I\Jelties slavery c . urely fail of . freedom because the sacred hentage of our nation a d · We Wi ll wm our . n the et

of God are embodied in our echomg demands. ernaJ ~11 B fore closing J feel impelled to mention one other point i e n Your st

that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the . atem,01 . " d " d " t· . B1rm1ngh olice force for keepmg or er an preven mg v10Ience." 1 d am p .

would have so warmly commended the police force if you had . You . . seen Its d

sinking their teeth mto unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. J doubt th t og1 . . a you Would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their 1

f N h . th . . ·1 'f ug y and in. humane treatment o egroes ere m e city 1a1 ; 1 you were tow I h a c them Push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls· if you we ' re to 11! them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were 10 b o serve them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handing the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "non~~ lently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segrega. lion. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence de- mands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tned to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his police· men have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the . . . immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptatwn the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason." .

I · h tors of Bir· wis you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstra mingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to,suffer and their amaI ing dis · 1· · . h s th will recog Cip me m the midst of great provocation. One day t e ou I . . bl senseo nize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths with the no e p , 'th tneag,

~rpose that enables them to face jeering, and hostile mobs; and wi d 0~ nizmg Jo J' ·u beol • ' ne mess that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They WI 01an pressed b tt d r old wo . ' a ere Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-yea · •th hei in Montgom Al . ·ty and w1 ery, abama, who rose up with a sense of dtgni

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Letter from Birmingham Jail ide segregated buses, and who responded with ungram-. d not tor . .

le decide one who inquired about her weanness: "My feets is tired oP ndity to , pe ·cal profu 1 ,, They will be the young high school and college stu-fllall I is at res • [lly sou •nisters of the gospel and a host of their elders coura- bUI oung rn1 . . . . '

ts rhe Y . Jently sitting m at lunch counters and willmgly going to den ' d nonvJO uslY an , ake one day the South will know that when these disin-geo cience s · .. 1 for cons f God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality stand-1a1 ·1dren o llerited ch

1 . b st in the American dream and for the most sacred values in whatis e . . . ·~g up for . t· n heritage, thereby bnngmg our nation back to those great i,, .chns 1a . our Judaeo which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their for-

f democracy . wells o Constitution and the Declaration of Independence ... Let us muJation of thhe dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the

e that t e . . all IIOP . derstanding will be hfted from our fear-drenched communi-f ofnusun deep og not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and broth- n·es and in some · 'th II h · · ·11 · b ' . h' e over our great nat10n wt a t etr scmti atmg eauty. erl!Ood w1Il s m

f the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, y0urs or Martin Luther King, Jr.

353