America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis

Author:Jim Wallis [Wallis, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw
Tags: REL012110, SOC031000, Racism—United States, REL028000, United States—Race relations
ISBN: 9781493403486
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-01-11T23:00:00+00:00

“Letter from Birmingham Jail”

One of the most important letters in American history, and in the history of the church in America, was written in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, by a young Martin Luther King Jr. King had been locked up for leading marches in the city for freedom. King’s letter is now classic, dealing with movements and their strategy, but it was written as a specific response to local white clergy who had criticized him and other black ministers for causing such disruption in their city. They claimed to be “moderate” white clergy, and they accused King of going too fast.

Shortly after he’d been arrested, King read their letter in jail. It was signed by eight of Alabama’s most prominent clergy—including Methodist, Episcopal, and Catholic bishops, mainline Protestant and evangelical ministers, and a rabbi—and published in the Birmingham News. The religious leaders’ letter was, ironically, titled “A Call for Unity,” and it attacked the civil rights campaign as “unwise and untimely” and accused the nonviolent protesters of “provoking hatred and violence.” It appealed “to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.”21

King crafted his letter in reply on the margins of the newspaper where the letter against him appeared and on other paper smuggled into his cell. The letter was written during King’s eight days in jail and was quietly smuggled out in pieces by visitors to King. The content of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” feels as relevant today as it was then, more than fifty years ago, when the letter was published in America and around the world. In this now-famous letter, King spoke of the global connections between injustices in different places. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny.”22

Obedience to the law, even unjust laws, had become one of the most egregious ways that ministers and their churches had become conformed to their culture. King’s response to the cultural conformity of the white churches was more theological than just political when he wrote: “There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”23 The Birmingham ministers didn’t realize they would be dealing with St. Augustine, along with Martin Luther King Jr.

King had hoped for a better response from his fellow clergy in the white churches and synagogues. At first, he really expected that when they saw such racial and economic injustice exposed, as these clergy had seen in their city, they would also stand up to it. But that is not what King found in Birmingham:

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much.

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