Remembering Birmingham by Edward Gilbreath

Author:Edward Gilbreath [Gilbreath, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Living, General, Social Science, Discrimination
ISBN: 9780830866632
Google: gOv0qi14IjwC
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2013-03-04T05:21:33+00:00

3

“My Dear Fellow Clergymen”

Dated April 16, 1963, King’s letter was ostensibly addressed to the eight white clergymen who had deemed him an “outsider” and called his movement’s presence in Birmingham “unwise” and “untimely.” King explains that, as a rule, he avoids responding directly to the multitude of criticisms leveled against him. But because he senses these brothers are “men of genuine goodwill” and that their “criticisms are sincerely set forth,” he endeavors to answer them in “patient and reasonable terms.”

He begins, “My Dear Fellow Clergymen,” but it becomes evident fairly quickly that he isn’t just aiming his missive at Harmon, Hardin, Carpenter, Durick, Grafman, Murray, Ramage and Stallings. No, for him the Birmingham Eight were essentially surrogates for the larger watching world. King is also going after Birmingham’s new Mayor Albert Boutwell, Commissioner Bull Connor, Birmingham World editor Emory Jackson, businessman A. G. Gaston, President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Billy Graham, National Baptist Convention president J. H. Jackson, and every other American, white or black, who felt Negroes should slow their proverbial roll or who doubted the Judeo-Christian foundation of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” marks a synthesis of concepts and philosophies King had been working out for years in speeches, articles and even in his seminary and postgraduate work. It represents, in the opinion of one historian, “a culmination of all of King’s ideas, theology, experiences, and civil rights tactics.” His approach is at once redemptive and subversive. There is, in effect, a method to his meekness. Notes Thoreau scholar Wesley T. Mott: “King’s conciliatory tone—while apparently conceding ground in its humility—is intended to reveal the inhumanity of the clergymen’s position and to hold it up to the scorn of those of us who are reading over their shoulders.”

King works hard to establish a tone of cordial discourse, but through each sentence, one can feel his fierce indignation teeming below the surface. When the letter finally found its way to the Birmingham Eight, they no doubt felt it too.

He likens himself to the apostle Paul, who traveled throughout Greece and Asia Minor preaching and launching churches (and who also, coincidentally, spent a lot of time writing letters to the church from behind bars). King cites the “Macedonian call” in which a man appears to Paul in a dream, asking him to “come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9). Like King, Paul was persecuted, arrested and ultimately executed for preaching an unpopular message. King connects his own situation to Paul’s sufferings and thus ascribes a level of biblical legitimacy to his ministry of social justice. He justifies his presence in Birmingham by appealing to “the interrelatedness of all communities and states” and declaring that his quest for human rights transcends jurisdiction. He could not “sit idly by in Atlanta” while hell was breaking loose in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere, he said.

To the criticism that the Birmingham demonstrations were ill-timed, King counters that those in privileged positions cannot be depended on to yield their power voluntarily—they must be compelled to do the right thing.

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