A U G U S T 1 9 6 3 - Letter from the Birmingham Jail

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in longhand the letter which follows. It was his response to
a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South. Dr. King, who was born in 1929, did his undergraduate work at Morehouse College; attended the integrated Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of six Negroes among a hundred students, and the president of his class; and won a fellowship to Boston University for his Ph.D.

WHILE confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came
across your recent statement calling our present activities
"unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer
criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all of the
criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged
in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time
for constructive work. But 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.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham,
since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders
coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization
operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta,
Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliate organizations all
across the South, one being the Alabama Christian Movement
for Human Rights. Whenever necessary and possible, we share
staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates.
Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham
invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action
program if such were deemed necessary. We readily
consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our
promises. So I am here, along with several members of my
staff, because we were invited here. I am here because I have
basic organizational ties here.

     Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just
as the eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried
their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their
hometowns; 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
hometown. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the
Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all
communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not
be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. 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.
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.

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place
in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not
express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the
demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would
want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks
merely at effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. 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.

 IN ANY nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps:
collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive,
negotiation, self-purification, and direct action. We have gone
through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no
gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this
community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly
segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police
brutality is known in every section of this 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 other city in this nation.
These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis
of them, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers.
But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in
good-faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of
the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating
sessions certain promises were made by the merchants, such as
the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the
stores. On the basis of these promises, Reverend Shuttlesworth
and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for
Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of
demonstration. As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized
that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs
remained. As in so many experiences of the past, we were
confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep
disappointment settled upon us. 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. We were
not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go
through a process of self-purification. We started having
workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the
questions, "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?"
and "Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?" We decided
to set our direct-action program around the Easter season,
realizing that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest
shopping period of the year. 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. Then it occurred to us that
the March election was ahead, and so we speedily decided to
postpone action until after election day. When we discovered
that Mr. Conner was in the runoff, we decided again to
postpone action so that the demonstration could not be used to
cloud the issues. At this time we agreed to begin our nonviolent
witness the day after the runoff.

This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct
action. We, too, wanted to see Mr. Conner defeated, so we
went through postponement after postponement to aid in this
community need. After this we felt that direct action could be
delayed no longer.

You may well ask, "Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches,
and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are exactly
right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of
direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a
crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that
has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the
issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be
ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of
the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather
shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word
"tension." I have earnestly worked and preached against violent
tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension
that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was
necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals
could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the
unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal,
we must see the need of having nonviolent 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, the purpose of direct
action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will
inevitably open the door to negotiation. We therefore concur
with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved
Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in
monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are
untimely. Some have asked, "Why didn't you give the new
administration time to act?" 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. We will be
sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will
bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is
much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Conner, they are
both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the
status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be
reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to
desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from
the devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that
we have not made a single gain in civil rights without
determined 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 voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as
Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral
than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. 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. For years now I have heard the word "wait." It
rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This
"wait" has almost always meant "never." It has been a
tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a
moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.
We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday
that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have
waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our
God-given and constitutional 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. 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 twenty 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 cannot 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 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 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"
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 "Mrs."; when you are harried by
day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro,
living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to expect
next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when
you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodyness"
-- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and
men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of
injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding
despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and
unavoidable impatience.

 YOU express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to
break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. 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.
One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some
laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that
there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are
unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "An unjust
law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one
determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a
man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of
God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the
moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an
unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and
natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any
law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation
statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and
damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of
superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To
use the words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher,
segregation substitutes an "I - it" relationship for the "I - thou"
relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of
things. So segregation is not only politically, economically, and
sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul
Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn't segregation an
existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression
of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? 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.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws.
An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that
is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the
other hand, a just law is a code that a majority compels a
minority to follow, and that it is willing to follow itself. This is
sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code
inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in
enacting or creating because it did not have the unhampered
right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama
which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected?
Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving
methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming
registered voters, and there are some counties without a single
Negro registered to vote, despite the fact that the Negroes
constitute a majority of the population. Can any law set up in
such a state be considered democratically structured?

These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There
are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in
its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge
of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong with
an ordinance which 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.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil
disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar
because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced
superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face
hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks
before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.
To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because
Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was
"legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in
Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew
in Hitler's Germany. 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. 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.

 

I MUST make two honest confessions to you, my Christian
and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few
years I have been gravely disappointed with the white
moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that
the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom
is not the White Citizens Councillor 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
paternalistically 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." Shallow understanding from people of good will is
more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of
ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than
outright rejection.

In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though
peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate
violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn't this like
condemning the robbed man because his possession of money
precipitated the evil act of robbery? 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? Isn't this like condemning
Jesus because His unique God-consciousness and
never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of
crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have
consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to
withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights
because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect
the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth
of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in
Texas which said, "All Christians know that the colored people
will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you
are in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity
almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of
Christ take time to come to earth." All that is said here grows
out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely
irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time
that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be
used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel
that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively
than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this
generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the
bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on
wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and
persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and
without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces
of social stagnation.

 

YOU spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first
I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my
nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking
about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces
in the Negro community. 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
"somebodyness" 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. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and
comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed
in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over
the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah
Muhammad's Muslim movement. This movement is nourished
by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of
racial discrimination. 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. 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. There is a more
excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to
God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of
nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not
emerged, I am convinced that by now many streets of the
South would be flowing with floods of blood. 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
nonviolent 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.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge
for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to
the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his
birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that
he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been
swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his
black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of
Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, he is moving with a
sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial
justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro
community, one should readily understand public
demonstrations. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and
latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march
sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall;
understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his
repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways,
they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is
not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my
people, "Get rid of your discontent." But I have tried to say that
this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through
the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this
approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I
was initially disappointed in being so categorized.

But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained
a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was
not Jesus an extremist in love? -- "Love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you."
Was not Amos an extremist for justice? -- "Let justice roll
down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was
not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? -- "I bear
in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin
Luther an extremist? -- "Here I stand; I can do no other so
help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist? -- "I will
stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a mockery of
my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? --
"This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not
Thomas Jefferson an extremist? -- "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is
not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists
we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be
extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation
of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I
was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I
should have realized that few members of a race that has
oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep
groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been
oppressed, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice
must be rooted out by strong, persistent, and determined
action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers
have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and
committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in
quantity, but they are big in quality. Some, like Ralph McGill,
Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, and James Dabbs, have written
about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic, and understanding
terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of
the South. They sat in with us at lunch counters and rode in
with us on the freedom rides. They have languished in fifty
roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry
policemen who see them as "dirty nigger lovers." They, unlike
many of their moderate brothers, have recognized the urgency
of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action"
antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

 

LET me rush on to mention my other disappointment. I have
been disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of
course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful
of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on
this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your
Christian stand this past Sunday in welcoming Negroes to your
Baptist Church worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I
commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating
Springhill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate
that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that
as one of those negative critics who can always find something
wrong with the church. 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.

I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into
the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years
ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt
that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would
be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been
outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom
movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others
have been more cautious than courageous and have remained
silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass
windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to
Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of
this community would see the justice of our cause and with
deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our
just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped
that each of you would understand. But again I have been
disappointed.

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. In the midst of blatant injustices
inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand
on the sidelines and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and
sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid
our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so
many ministers say, "Those are social issues which the gospel
has nothing to do with," and I have watched so many churches
commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which
made a strange distinction between bodies and souls, the
sacred and the secular.

There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was
during that period that the early Christians rejoiced when they
were 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 the
thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the
early Christians entered a town the power structure got
disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being
"disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But they went
on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven" and
had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number
but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be
"astronomically intimidated." They brought an end to such
ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

Things are different now. The contemporary church is so often
a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often
the arch supporter 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 often vocal
sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. 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. I meet young people every
day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright
disgust.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this
decisive hour. But even if the church 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 presently 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 the destiny of America.
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before
the pen of Jefferson scratched across the pages of history the
majestic word of the Declaration of Independence, we were
here. For more than two centuries our foreparents labored here
without wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes
of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful
humiliation -- and yet out of a bottomless vitality our people
continue to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of
slavery could not 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.

I must close now. But before closing I am impelled to mention
one other point in your statement that troubled me profoundly.
You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for
keeping "order" and "preventing violence." 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,
nonviolent Negroes. 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; if you would
watch them push and curse old Negro women and young
Negro girls; if you would see them slap and kick old Negro
men and young boys, if you would observe them, as they did
on two occasions, refusing to give us food because we wanted
to sing our grace together. I'm sorry that I can't join you in your
praise for the police department.

It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public
handling of the demonstrators. In this sense they have been
publicly "nonviolent." But for what purpose? To preserve the
evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I have
consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means
we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. So I have tried to
make it 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
even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of
Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to
suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most
inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real
heroes. They will be the James Merediths, courageously and
with a majestic sense of purpose facing jeering and hostile
mobs and the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of
the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro
women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman of
Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity
and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses,
and responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with
ungrammatical profundity, "My feets is tired, but my soul is
rested." They will be young high school and college students,
young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders
courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and
willingly going to jail for conscience's sake. One day the South
will know that when these disinherited children of God sat
down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the
best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our
Judeo-Christian heritage.

Never before have I written a letter this long -- or should I say
a book? I'm afraid that it is much too long to take your
precious time. 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?

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. 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.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.