If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. Isn’t segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Isn't segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants--such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. Your donation to the Institute in support of The Imaginative Conservative is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. As the title implies, MLK penned this letter (now anthologized as an essay) from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, where he and other civil rights protestors were being held simply for making their voices heard in th e segregationist Jim Crow south of 1963. 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. If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement 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. 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. I vowed to change, to be change and I did and have been. For years now I have heard the word “wait.” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. 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. Actually time is neutral. We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." 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. — “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? It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Before showing the image, I put students in self-assigned groups. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’ “We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.” Was not Jesus an extremist in love? 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.
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