Northwest Defender_1964-01-09

STAN WAYNAN-LIFE LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL While Martin Luther Kinf.l Jr. was in Binning– ham's city jail last April. a group of white clergy– men wrote a public statement criticizinf.l him for "unwise and untimely" demonstrations. KinR wrote a reply-on pieces of toilet paper. 'the IIJar{!ins of newspapers, and anything else he could get his hands OIZ-and smuggled it out to an aide in bits and pieces. Although in the tumble of events then and since, it never got the notice it deserved, it may yet live as a classic expression of the NeRro revolution of 1963. Excerpts from the letter. which was addressed to "My Dear Fellow Clergymen": MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. An unprecedented coalition of conscience. W E have waited for more than 340 years for our constitution– al and God-given rights. The na– tions of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we sti II creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of cof– fee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." precipitate violence. Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitat– ed the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates he– cause his unswerving commitmeht to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hem– lock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-conscious– ness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of the Crucifixion·> • The question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be ex– tremists for hate or will we be ex– tremists for love? Will we be extrem– ists for the preservation of injustice -or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified for ihe same crime -the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The 1 other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. • -Before the Pilgrims landed at MAN OF THE YEAR GOING TO JAIL IN BIRMINGHAM (LEFT: ABERNATHY) A Christian forbearance that nourishes hope and smothers injustice. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fa– thers 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; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't 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 de– veloping a bitterness toward white people; 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 nev– er 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 quite know– ing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resent– ments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ·'nobody– ness"-then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries, our foreparents labored in this country without wages: they made cotton "king," and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shan)e– ful humiliation-and yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continued to thrive and develop. If the in– expressible' crueLties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred her– itage of our nation and the eter– nal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. inspirational than administrative; as an observer says, "more at with a conception than he is w details of its application." Ki was bombed, and when his people seemed ready to .take to streets in a riot of protest, he trolled them with his calm of nonviolence. King became famous (TIME cover, Feb. 18. 1 and in less than a year the Su Court upheld an earlier order forb 1 im Crow seating in Alabama buses.'' Albany. Montgomery was one of the first ~real battles won by the Negro in the South. and tor a while after it was "':on everything seemed anticlimactic to K111g. When the sit-ins and freedom– nde , movements gained momentum, Kzng s S.C.L.C. helped organize and support them. But King somehow did ~ot seem very efficient, and his apparent l<~ck of unagmatzon was to bring him to hzs lowest ebh in the Negro movement. In December 1961. King joined a mass protest demonstration in Albany, Ga., was arrested, and dramatically declared that he would stay in jail until Albany consented to desegregate its public fa– ciiJtzes.. But just two days after his ar– rest. Kzng came out on bail. The Alba– ny movement collapsed, and King was hztterly cntzczzed tor helping to kill it. To.~lay h~ admits mistakes in Albany. Lookmg hack over it," he says, 'Tm sorry I was bailed out. I didn't under– stand at the time what was happening. We thought that the victory had been ~on. When we got out, we discovered 11 was ~II a hoax. We had lost a real op– portunzty to redo Albany, and we lost an initiative that we never regained." But Kzng also learned a lesson in Al– bany. "We attacked the political power structure mstead of the economic pow– structure," he says. "You don't win against a political power structure where you don't have the votes. But vou n win against an economic po~er ucturc when you have the economic to make the difference between merchant's profit and loss." Birmingham. It was while he was in is post-Albany eclipse that King began planning for his most massive assault on the barricades of segregation. The tar- ''' The desegregation order still holds but o1dcr ~1onlgomery Negroes have sine~ re– vencd to a .somewhat loose pattern of scg– rcg_aled. seatmg, rarely, for example, will a while nder and a Negro sit beside each other. Birmingham, citadel of blind die- segregation. King's lieut~nant, Tee Walker, has explained the that governs King's planning: got to have a crisis to bargain • In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peace– ful, must be condemned because they . • HOSES IN BIRMINGHAM • Unw1ttmg/y, he and his city brought millions of people to the Negro's side. To take a moderate approach, · ng to get white help, doesn't work. sters were shot and killed the same day. nail you to the cross, and it saps Those events awakened long-slum- enthusiasm of the followers. You've benng Negro resentments, from which to have a crisis."' a fresh Negro urgency drew strength. For the first time, a unanimity ~f pur– pose slammed into the Negro corf– sciousness with the force of a fire hose. Class lines began to shatter. Middle– class Negroes, who were aspiring for acceptance by the white community, suddenly founc a point of identity with Negroes at the bottom of the economic N.A.A.C.P. Leader Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his home. There was violence in Jackson, Miss., in Cam– britlge, Md., in Danville, Va. In Bir– mingham, later in the year, a church bombing killed four Negro Sunday– school children. while two other young- heap. Many wealthy Negroes, once re– luctant to join the fight, pitched in. Now sit-in campaigns and demon– strations erupted like machine-gun fire in every major city in the North, as well as in hundreds of new places in the South. Negroes demanded better job opportunities, an end to the de facto school segregation th:1t ghetto life had forced upon them. . . . Reprinted by permission of Time