An important note

Taking a break from the current crisis

THIS ISN’T the first crisis the country has been through. Although it’s hard to say that to somebody who’s lost a loved one in the past few weeks. As Jack Lemmon’s priestly character said in the 1984 movie Mass Appeal, maybe saying something stupid in a time of grief can be helpful — because it shows the mourner that nothing can comfort him, which sometimes helps the loved one get through the rough patches.

This country has gone through social, cultural, economic upheaval before. On this date in 1963, a preacher sat in a jail in Birmingham, Ala., thinking about the crisis of his day. Specifically, he held a copy of a letter addressed to him and the other Outside Agitators, who had gone to Birmingham to make real changes.

To make matters worse, the letter to the protesters was written by local clergy, who tut-tutted at those who would break the law. Even unjust law. Why, good Christians don’t break the rules.

They wait/hope/stand-by for change. All good things come to those who wait. (As if the Messiah of the New Testament didn’t come to change the world.)

But the man writing his answer in a Birmingham jail that day would not be talked down to.

He was clergy, too. He started his letter of April 16, 1963, this way: “My Dear Fellow Clergymen:”

Then he let them have it.

THE MAN in jail admitted it: He was from Atlanta. He was in Birmingham because injustice was in Birmingham. And prophets may not have a choice about where they’re put to work. As he explained, “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

That line would be remembered. But then he poured it on. For when it comes to some people — especially well-paid, learned people used to docile congregations listening to them worshipfully every Sunday morning — a real preacher might have to remind them about what had been happening outside their cloistered, well-cushioned world for the past few hundred years. And why justice could wait no longer:

“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.”

NO WONDER Martin Luther King Jr.’s answer is still remembered while the clergymen’s appeal to unity — on their terms, of course — has long since been forgotten. They might have thought their milksop, and dubious, call for unity above all else, including justice, would make them stand above the fray. Maybe they didn’t realize it at the time, but they were hipdeep in the fray. And if they favored slow-moving justice, they were taking sides.

Dr. King’s letter from a Birmingham jail will be read long after those writing and reading this editorial are gone. Ideas live; the rest of us are just passing through. And Martin Luther King’s ideas included getting results:

“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.”

Goodness, but there is only so much a mere editor can add. MLK would have made an excellent editorial writer. Don’t kidney-punch with your words. Hit ’em in the mouth. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

THERE ISN’T a way to get the entire letter into this column. But it can be easily found on hundreds or more websites, and freely given at that. It’s part of American history now.

“Never before have I written so long a letter,” he wrote near the end. “I’m afraid 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 can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?”

There’s something about a jail cell that has inspired good men in history. We remember Paul and Silas singing from prison. As many Americans sit at home these days, even helping kids with the homework, perhaps a study of American Civil Rights history is in order. There’s a pretty good letter written on this day in the 1960s we can start with.