Pace 6 — ^^.====z= January 18, 1988
From A Birmingham
Jail: Excerpts From A
Classic Letter
. . I am in Birmingham because
injustice exists here. Just as the prophets
of the eighth century B.C. left their
villages and carried their ‘thus saith the
Lord” far afield 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. Like Paul. I must constantly
respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
". . .1 guess it is easy for those who
have never felt the stinging darts of
segregation to say ‘wait.’
“But when you have seen vicious
mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at
will and down 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 depress
ing clouds of inferiority begin to form in
her little mental sky, and see her begin to
distort her little personality by un
consciously developing 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 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 quite knowing what to ex
pect 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.
“In your statement you asserted that
our actions, even though peaceful, must
be condemned because they precipitate
violence. Isn't this like condemning the
robbed man because his possession of
money precipitated the evil act of rob
bery? Isn’t this like con
demning Socrates because his unswerving
commitment to truth and philosophical
delvings precipitated the misguided
popular mind to make him drink the
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?
“The question is not whether we will
be extremist but what kind of extremist
will we be. Will we be extremists for hate
or will we be extremists for love? Will we
be extremists for the preservation of in
justice — or will we be extremists for the
cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on
Calvary’s Hill, three men were crucified
for the same crime — the crime of ex
tremism. Two were extremists for im
morality, and thus fell below their en
vironment. The 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.
“Let us all hope that the dark clouds
of racial prejudice will soon pass away
and the deep fog of misunderstanding will
be lifted from our fear-drenched com
munities and in some not too distant
tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
brotherhood will shine over our great na
tion with all their scintillating beauty.”