Letter from Birmingham Jail Page 1
Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen
April 12, 1963
We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued "An
Appeal for Law and O rder and Common Sense," in dealing with racial problems in
Alabama. We expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters could
properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those courts should in the
meantime be peacefully obeyed.
Since that time there had been some evidence of increased fo
earance and a
willingness to face facts. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on various
problems which cause racial friction and unrest. In Birmingham, recent public events
have given ind ication that we all have opportunity for a new constructive and realistic
approach to racial problems.
However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of ou
Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural
impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are
convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.
We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called fo
honest and open negotiation of racial issues in our area. And we believe this kind of
facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area,
white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experience of the local situation.
All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its
accomplishment.
Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in
our re ligious and political trad itions," we also point out that such actions as incite to
hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not
contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of
new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.
We commend the community as a whole, and the local news media and law
enforcement in particular, on the calm manner in which these demonstrations have
een handled. We urge the public to continue to show restraint should the
demonstrations continue, and the law enforcement official to remain calm and continue
to protect our city from violence.
We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from
these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a bette
Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the
courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. W e appeal to both
our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common
sense.
C. C. J. Carpenter, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Alabama
Joseph A. Durick, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop, Diocese of Mobile, Birmingham
Ra
i Hilton L. Grafman, Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, Alabama
Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference
Bishop Holan B. Harmon, Bishop of the North A labam a Conference of the Methodist
Church
George M. Mu
ay, D.D., LL.D, Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama
Edward V. Ramage, Moderator, Synod of the Alabama Presbyterian Church in the
United States
Earl Stallings, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
Letter from Birm ingham Jail
April 16, 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent
statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to
answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross
my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such
co
espondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive
work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms
are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be
patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been
influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of
serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization
operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some
eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and
financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in
Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if
such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived
up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was
invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the
prophets of the eighth century BC left their villages and ca
ied 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 ca
ied the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the
Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to ca
y the gospel of freedom beyond my
own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the M acedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the inte
elatedness of all communities and
Letter from Birmingham Jail Page 2
states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in
Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects
one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the na
ow,
provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can neve
e considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But you
statement, I am so
y to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that
ought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest
content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and
does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are
taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white powe
structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
In any nonvio lent campaign there are four basic steps: co llection of the facts to
determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. W e
have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact
that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most
thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of
utality is widely
known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have
een more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in
any other city in the nation. These are the hard,
utal facts of the case. On the basis of
these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latte
consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.
Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of
Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises
were made by the merchants -- for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial
signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders
of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all
demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the
victims of a
oken promise. A few signs,
iefly removed, returned; the others
emained.
As in so many past experiences, our hopes bad been blasted, and the shadow
of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare fo
direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case
efore the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the
difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began
a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you
able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?"
We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that
except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a
strong economic withdrawal program would be the byproduct of direct action, we felt
that this would be the best time to
ing pressure to bear on the merchants for the
needed change.
Then it occu
ed to us that Birmingham's mayoralty election was coming up in
March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we
discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled
up enough votes to be in the run-out we decided again to postpone action until the day
after the run-off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like
many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured
postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that
our d irect-action program could be delayed no longer.
You may 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. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no
longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the
nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid
of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of
constructive, nonviolent tension which 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
ondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and
objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind
of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and
acism to the majestic heights of understanding and
otherhood.
The purpose of our