April 18, 2013
Column #1,651
The Angry Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Mike McManus In most American minds the image of Martin
Luther King is the inspirational speaker of “I have a Dream” at
the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 on the 100th anniversary of the
Emancipation Proclamation.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons
of former slaves and sons of former slave owners will be able to
sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
However, King was often angry at the injustice his people faced.
He began that same speech noting that a century after the
Emancipation Proclamation, “the Negro still is not free; 100
years later, the life of the Negro is sadly crippled by the
manacles of segregation…The Negro lives on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
After electing and re-electing a black man as President,
America’s younger generation is unaware of how vicious
segregation was in King’s day.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the release of King’s
“Letter from a Birmingham City Jail.” He was arrested for
leading demonstrations to desegregate Birmingham, without a
permit. While sitting in his cell he was given a copy of a “Call
for Unity” by five white Episcopal Methodist and Catholic
bishops, and a leading Baptist, Presbyterian and Jew.
They attacked the civil rights campaign as “unwise and
untimely,” and a provocation to hatred and violence. They
denounced “outsiders coming in,” and urged restraint and
appealed to “white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles
of law and order.”
In a controlled fury, King crafted a letter of reply ostensibly
addressed to the eight clergymen, but targeted at white
moderates and President Kennedy. It was a “powerful indictment
of the shortcomings of timid moderation in the face of
injustice, a sermon of chastisement – a shrewd, tough-minded,
even militant political comment,” writes Robert Westbrook in
this week’s “Christian Century,” the magazine which published
King’s letter.
The letter, smuggled out of his solitary confinement, began with
feigned cordiality, “My dear fellow clergymen,” but quickly
addressed the “outsider” charge, noting he was invited by a
local affiliate of his Southern Christian Leadership
Conference., adding “I am in Birmingham because injustice is
here.”
“You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place
in Birmingham. But I am sorry your statement did not express a
similar concern for the conditions that brought the
demonstrations into being…The white power structure of this city
left the Negro with no alternative.”
“Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in
the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known
in every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of
Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been
more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham
than any city in this nation.”
One church bombing killed four black girls.
He recalled that local Negro leaders had tried to negotiate.
Merchants promised “to remove the humiliating racial signs from
the stores,” but changed nothing. “We were the victims of a
broken promise.”
Therefore, they trained for “direct action.” Volunteers were
asked, “Are you able to accept blows without retaliation?”
He charged, “Constructive nonviolent tension is necessary for
growth…We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed.
“For years now I have heard the words “Wait!” This “Wait” has
almost always meant “Never.” It has been a tranquilizing
thalidomide, relieving emotional stress for a moment, only to
give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.”
He said he found himself “stammering to explain” to a
six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to a public amusement
park, because “Funtown is closed to colored children.”
He outlined why some laws had to be broken: “All segregation
statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and
damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense
of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority.”
King noted that “conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes”
from voting. “There are some counties without a single Negro”
able to vote though they are “a majority of the population.”
He added that he was “so greatly disappointed with the white
church and its leadership…I felt that white ministers, priests
and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies.”
But they have been “more cautious than courageous and have
remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained
glass windows.”
Stung by his charge, thousands of white clergy joined the
demonstrations.
A year later the U.S. Civil Rights Act removed apartheid laws
across the land. |
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