MLK: “Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust…

…when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the 1st-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.”

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” 1963.

During times of protest, like now, I always find his words in that letter full of truth.

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Here’s more— with just a few [words changed] for historical context.

——
“While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities ‘unwise and untimely’ […] since I feel that you are men of genuine good will & that your…

…criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient & reasonable terms.

[…]

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities. I cannot sit idly by in [Chicago] and not be concerned about what happens in [Kenosha]

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 anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place. But your statement, I am sorry to say…

…fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.

I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects & does not grapple with underlying causes.

It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place, but it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure left the [Black] community with no alternative.

[...] There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community.

[Wisconsin] is [one of the most] the most thoroughly segregated [states] in the Country. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known.

[my note: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/kenosha-exposes-secret-in-u-s-midwest-sky-high-inequality-rate ]

[Blacks] have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. [...] These are the hard, brutal facts.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches & 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. **Nonviolent 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 have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which 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 & half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark

depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct action is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

Too long has our beloved [country] been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.

Lamentably, it is an historical 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 tend to be 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 yet to engage in an action 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 [black person] 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."

We have waited for more than [400] years for our constitutional & God given rights.

[...]

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait."

But [...] when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your [forty million black] 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 6 year old daughter why she can't go to the [expensive] amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes [...], and see ominous clouds of inferiority

…beginning to form in her little mental sky, & see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people;

when you have to concoct an answer for a 5 year old son asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat [black] people so mean?"

when you are harried by day & haunted by night by the fact that you are [black], living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears & outer resentments; […]

—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 the abyss of 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. [...]

Sometimes a law is just on its face & unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit.

[or violating curfew!]

Now, there is nothing wrong in…

…having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade.

But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction.

[…]

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist.

That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, & w/ a willingness to accept the penalty.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience

…tells him is unjust, & who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience.

It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake.

It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions & the excruciating pain

…rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.

To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget:

everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" & everything the freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."

It was "illegal" to aid & comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived at the time, I would have aided & comforted my Jewish brothers.

I must make 2 honest confessions to you.

1st, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that [Black America’s] great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not

…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 cannot agree with your methods of [protest]",

who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises [black protestors] to wait for a "more [appropriate] 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.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice…

…and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which [Blacks] passively accepted [their] unjust plight…

…to a substantive & positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.

[…]

Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

We bring [tension] out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.

Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light…

…injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

You assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence.

But is this a logical assertion?

Isn't this like condemning a 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 inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock?

Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?

We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom.

I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually”

Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.

Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.

More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability;

it comes through tireless efforts […], and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of [the #BLM Protests] as extreme.

At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist.

I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the [Black] community.

One is a force of complacency, made up in part of [black Americans] who, as 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 [blacks] who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses.

[Herman Cain, anyone? Ben Carson? Kanye? Candice Owens? ]

The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, & it comes perilously close to advocating violence. [...]

Nourished by the [our] frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America [...]

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred & despair of the black nationalist.

For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent 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.

If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets [our country] would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood.

And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" [“Marxists” and] "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, & if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts…

…millions of [Blacks] will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.

The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened [now].

Something within has reminded [the Black American] of his birthright of freedom,

and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. [...]

If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed our community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place.

[Black America] has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and [it] must release them.

So let [us] march […] to the city hall- and try to understand why [we] must do so.

If [our] repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.

So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent."

Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action.

And now this approach is being termed extremist.

though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them”

[...] And Thomas Jefferson:

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ."

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.

Will we be extremists for hate or for love?

Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

[…]Perhaps the nation & the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need.

Perhaps I was too optimistic; I expected too much.

I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race,

& still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent & determined action.

[…]

You warmly commended the police force for keeping "order" & "preventing violence."

I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent [protestors].

I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of [non-whites] here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Black women and young Black girls;

…if you were to see them slap and kick [and shoot] old [Black] men and young boys;**[...].

I cannot join you in your praise of the police department.

[...] As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

I wish you had commended the [ #BLM] sit inners and demonstrators of [Kenosha] for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. [...]

Never before have I written so long a [tweet thread].

I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. [...]

If I have said anything in [here] that overstates the truth & indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.

If I have said anything that understates the truth…

…& indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood [or mistates the Rev. Dr. King’s words beyond their meaning], I beg God to forgive me.

Yours for the cause of Peace & Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.

[w/ slight edits by JRRO]

The original letter is linked at the start. Read it!

I had planned to just include half, but only ended up cutting about 25%, changing just a handful of words [as indicated], and adding some line breaks & elipses, because Twitter.

I didn’t change the meaning of any sentence.

@threadreaderapp unroll this please, so people can more easily read it.