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Martin Luther King Speaks Out
On April 16, 1963 King wrote his
famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He spelled out many
of his commitments regarding social justice.
"I am
in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the
eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their 'thus
saith the Lord' far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and
just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the
gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world,
so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home
town. ...
"In any
nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the
facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation;
self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these
steps in Birmingham. ... You many 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. 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. ...
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily
given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. ...
"One
may well ask: 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying
others?' The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of
laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just
laws. One has not only a responsibility to disobey unjust laws. ...
"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 that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you.' Was not Amos an extremist 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.'" (p. 520-24, 529 in African
American Religious History: A Documentary Witness, ed. Milton C.
Sernett, Duke U Pr., 1999)
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