Applying a “providential theory” instead of critical theory
Critical Theory infects much of the study of American history today. Horkheimer said that a theory is critical if it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.” Although the context of that is Marxist, as a Christian we also desire for humans to be liberated but recognize that it is God and His means of grace that alone brings real freedom to individuals and to systems of society, from the internal to the external. So especially in the study of Black history we need to use what I call “Providential Theory.”
In America’s Providential History co-authored by myself and Stephen McDowell, we do not ignore the impact that sin has on history but try to put more emphasis on the influence of God and righteous people in the founding and development of the United States. (You can order a copy with updated material here)
During Black History Month or any other courses with that focus, we have to discern principles and fruit of events using a Biblical worldview. It is important for the Christian to know the difference and not just blindly praise or follow anyone primarily for their race or gender or culture. It is not necessarily a good thing just because a person is first to do something, whether black or white. But in rest of this article we will make a sweeping view of the highlights of black history in America and make some observations.
We will look at it in roughly 80 or 90 year periods.
Black History 1776-1853
Prior to American independence Blacks made minor contributions in pre-USA territory under the control of other nations – British, Spanish, French, etc. The 1619 Project puts too much blame on Americans for things they could not appreciably change. By 1776 as Americans declared independence people began to try changing things immediately but most would still take time. Our focus in this article is not much on what whites did, but rather on what Blacks themselves did to contribute to the culture and policies of the American nation.
While states and territories slowly eliminated slavery and the slave trade, some blacks made steps that were remarkable for the time. Phyllis Wheatley’s poems in the 1770s were recognized for their objective quality. Immediately during the War for Independence about 7% of soldiers were black and mostly served in integrated units and made a good testimony for their race. Richard Allen in 1794 started the first African Methodist Episcopal Church called Bethel in Philadelphia. In 1804 a slave of William Clark named York was part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the west. Daniel Coker led the first emigration of blacks to Liberia in Africa in 1820. Thomas Jennings invented dry cleaning in 1821. The first black periodical began in 1827 called Freedom’s Journal in NY (its Editor in 1829 was Rev. Samuel Cornish). In 1829 David Walker’s Appeal was written. Daniel Payne opened a school in S.C. in 1830.
But in 1831 when Rev. Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Virginia that led to the deaths of 50 whites, the legislative over-reaction led to extreme limits on activities of blacks and stopped the gradual abolition trend. In fact the first defense of slavery and expression of opposition to its abolition began in the 1830s. Virtually none can be found before then. Church denominations began to split over slavery in America.
Clearly the most significant black leader to emerge in this first period was Frederick Douglass who had escaped from slavery and was licensed as a preacher by the AME Zion Church in 1839 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He began his anti-slavery work. Unfortunately, at that time the anti-slavery movement was split due to the non-Christian, anti-southern and anti-Constitutional stance of William L. Garrison. At first Douglass echoed Garrison, having become disillusioned with church leaders, and began blaming the Constitution and America’s form of government as pro-slavery & evil.
In contrast was Rev. Henry H. Garnet, a Presbyterian pastor in Troy, N.Y., who led the Christian movement and rivaled Douglass as the foremost black leader before the Civil War. Similarly, Rev. Sojourner Truth (Isabella Wagener), a former slave, began traveling to preach and speak against slavery (AME Zion church).
By 1851 Douglass changed his view (as expressed in his earlier 1845 Narrative) and began supporting the Constitution as an anti-slavery document and became far more effective a leader. His faith became more central to his public life, writing later that there is “…one great political idea…The best expression of it I found in the Bible: …righteousness exalts a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people—Proverbs 14:34. Now this constitutes my politics—the negative and positive of my politics and the whole of my politics.”
Others fought slavery in different ways. The parents of Charlotte Forten, a free black girl, home-schooled her in protest of segregation in public schools. Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849 and began to lead others to freedom (underground railroad). In 1852 Rev. Daniel Payne (AME) urged the importance of education of blacks.
Black History 1854-1931
In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska bill allowed for states to decide slavery. That same year the Republican Party was founded with an anti-slavery platform. Frances Harper was a leading black activist and lecturer for anti-slavery societies at that time. Ann Wood, a fugitive slave, led a wagon-load of armed boys & girls in a shoot-out & escape.
A case regarding a slave named Dred Scott was decided in 1857 by the Supreme Court that denied blacks as persons. This began to be debated in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in Illinois and Lincoln was elected to the presidency in 1860. Southern states seceded and joined together in a confederacy, so Lincoln employed the military against them.
Over the course of the Civil War between the states 186,000 blacks joined the Union Army (an all black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, was memorialized in the movie “Glory”), and some joined the Confederate Army. Both whites and blacks made decisions on politics not necessarily skin color. At the same time there were Indian wars in the west where black soldiers there became known as “Buffalo soldiers.”
In 1863 Lincoln made slavery the moral focus of the Civil War. That year Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead troops and her raid freed 750 slaves. After the war ended but the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the country by the end of 1865. The Freedman’s Bureau began to serve the newly freed communities.
For the first time blacks had opportunity to not only vote but to hold elected office. Mary Pleasant was a black civil rights leader in California. In 1867 Rev. Hiram Revels of Mississippi was the first black elected to the U.S. Senate as a member of the Republican Party. Frederick Douglass became a public official in Washington, D.C. that same year, also as a Republican. In all, there were two black senators and 14 black congressmen elected in those years. In 1872 Pinckney Pinchback, a Republican, was the first black elected as Governor of a state in Louisiana. Lucy Parsons was a black activist who joined the Labor party in 1877.
In 1868 the 14th Amendment (although passed illegally) guaranteed civil rights and due process for blacks but gave Congress power to usurp state law for the first time. In 1876, as martial law ended, Democrats returned to power in the southern states and seven years later their segregation system and Black Codes were upheld by the Supreme Court. Terrorism was used by radical Democrats through the KKK against blacks and white Republicans.
Despite these difficulties, some notable Black leaders found ways to make a difference within their limited opportunities. In 1881, Booker T. Washington, a former slave, started the Tuskegee Institute to educate blacks. In 1896, George W. Carver began teaching there. In 1891 Washington published his story called Up From Slavery, and became an advisor to Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. Booker was truly the most prominent black American in the 19th century. His faith held the supreme allegiance, saying later: “If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christlike work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last thirty-five years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian.”
Black women emerged also. Rev. Amanda Smith was a popular black evangelist and missionary at that time. Fannie Williams formed the National League of Colored Women (1st pres. is Mary Terrell) in 1893. In 1895, Margaret Washington was first president of the National Federation of Afro-American Women. Two other African-American women made strides: Maggie Walker in 1903 was the first woman bank president in Baltimore, and Mary Bethune in 1904 founded a school for black girls in Florida (eventually a college). In 1906, Rev. William Seymour was a black preacher who led an interracial revival in California at the Azuza Street Mission that launched Pentecostalism – a religious movement that over the next century became the largest Christian movement in the world with the most racially diverse churches in history.
In 1896 the Supreme Court upheld segregation in its Plessy v. Ferguson. Some leaders began to organize in new ways. Ida B. Wells was a journalist, advocate for civil rights and an anti-lynching crusader who helped to found the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and the Negro Fellowship League. Mary Terrell was president of the National Association of Colored Women and was active in the National American Suffrage Organization.
A shift away from Christian motivation and Republican party leadership began in the 1900s. In 1905 W. E. B. DuBois in New York issued a declaration calling for an end of voting restrictions and segregation. Wells, DuBois and several others helped start the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) on February 12, 1909. The National Urban League began a year later. These had good goals but some bad influences began to emerge. Unfortunately, DuBois rejected Christianity and was also a member of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and wrote in support of socialism and Marxism. Although an effective voice against racism he marked the beginning of a non-Christian philosophy of government.
James Baldwin and Marcus Garvey were other non-Christian voices. Garvey began the black nationalism movement in 1916 (which even DuBois condemned). Racism infused other organizations such as Planned Parenthood which its founder Margaret Sanger believed would use birth control and abortion to reduce inferior races, mainly blacks.
The black cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance led by Langston Hughes had a mixture of both biblical and unbiblical philosophies being expressed. The first black movie star Paul Robeson was a Communist. In 1925, A. Philip Randolph, a secular Humanist, organized and served as the first President of the Black International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and became one of America’s foremost labor leader and civil rights pioneers. Carter Woodson was the father of the black history movement which was good at the time but which has now been captured by non-Christian ideologies.
Black History 1932-today
All of the blacks famous in the 19th century were identified with the Republican Party and virtually all blacks voted for that party for about 80 years. DuBois did an almost unthinkable thing in the minds of most blacks by endorsing the Democratic Party’s racist southern presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Unquestionably, the systemic racism of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, the KKK, and were owned by the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party leaders were ignoring their black voters, assuming they would always be loyal. A political shift was coming.
Seeking greater leverage the NAACP gave their endorsements in the 1920s between both Republican and Democratic Parties. After the stock market crash in 1928 and Great Depression began, some blacks became advisors to the new Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 Mary M. Bethune was one who did so even though she identified as a Republican. Her faith in God was central to her work. She said: “Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible. Faith in God is the greatest power, but great, too, is faith in oneself….Our greatest Negro figures have been imbued with faith.”
FDR was reelected in 1936 with a significant shift of the black vote toward the Democratic Party for the first time due to the promise of economic aid. In 1935 John Lewis started a new integrated union called the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) after withdrawing from the all-white American Federation of Labor (AFL). Randolph organized a march on Washington in 1941. In 1942 James Farmer formed the nonviolent Congress of Racial Equality. Again, both Randolph and Farmer were secular Humanists.
FDR’s successor Harry Truman ordered the integration of the military after World War II and by 1948 a significant majority of blacks for the first time started identifying more with the Democratic Party (even though they had been voting that way for a decade or so).
Finally in 1954 the Supreme Court struck down segregation of schools and public institutions in its Brown v. Board of Education saying that separate is inherently unequal. This started the trend for integration of other public services with social pressure by people such as Rosa Parks, a Christian who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. In her church she said “I learned people should stand up for their rights, just as the Children of Israel stood up to the Pharaoh.” When she decided not to move from her seat she said: “I instantly felt God give me the strength to endure whatever would happen next….God’s peace flooded my soul, and my fear melted away. All people were equal in the eyes of God, and I was going to live like a free person.” It started a bus boycott organized by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He and others organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference a year later.
A Philip Randolph, still a Republican, was the first African American to serve as an International Vice-President of the AFL-CIO in 1957, and he organized another major march on Washington, D.C. in 1963 that became famous for its speech by Rev. M. L. King. Although King and most of these were still identified with the Republican Party and most politicians in the South were of the Democratic Party, most national Democratic leaders began to embrace King’s “Dream” based on the Declaration of Independence ideals and on content of character rather than race. It was the connection of the Christian community to the ideals of the founders that made the civil rights movement successful where it was unable to be so when lacking that emphasis.
King’s faith, as a Baptist minister of the Gospel was central to his politics. Here are a few quotes: “We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word . . . Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests. Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ.” He then challenged his hearers: “If any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God’s will, it is your Christian duty to oppose it. You must never allow the transitory, evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.” But Rev. King was clear where it starts: “By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists . . . Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” His Letter from a Birmingham Jail is one of the most important pieces of American literature that should be read as much as Washington’s Farewell Address. (For paid subscribers we have included King’s Letter. see below)
The year after the 1963 March on Washington Congress passed the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public Facilities, and then in 1965 the Civil Rights Act. Although more Republicans supported it than Democrats, the high-profile signing of it by President Lyndon Johnson of the Democratic Party made the overwhelming majority of blacks to begin supporting that party. A march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama continued to expose racism in the south still in the control of the Democrats. There were also riots by blacks in Los Angeles. But in 1966 the first black in a century was elected to the U.S. Senate, Edward Brooke, Republican of Massachusetts. And that same year the first black justice was appointed to the Supreme Court – Thurgood Marshall.
Although breakthrough was happening, riots still took place nationwide and in 1968 Dr. King was assassinated. But it did not succeed to stop the gradual acceptance of integration and respect of the rights of blacks in America. Rev. Andrew Young was U.N. ambassador in 1977. Dr. King was honored in 1983 when President Ronald Reagan made a national holiday in his honor. Other black leaders with Christian roots such as Rev. Jesse Jackson attempted to lead blacks but could not do so as effectively as King and the SCLC due to the liberalism and socialism that he articulated.
Clarence Thomas, a conservative Republican, joined the Supreme Court in 1989. In 1993 and again 2005 and 2009 Illinois sent a Democratic African-American to the Senate. In 2011 South Carolina did the same, but as a Republican. New Jersey sent a Democratic black man to the Senate in 2013.
In 1989 Colin Powell, also a member of the Republican Party, became the first Secretary of State in 2001. In 1990 the first black in over a century was elected as a Governor – Douglas Wilder a Democrat in Virginia. Barack Obama, a Democratic candidate, was elected the first African-American President in 2008 and appointed the first black to be Attorney General.
By the beginning of the 21st century the most popular religious leaders in America had become African Americans. Also the most popular television and movie stars, and singers. Likewise the most money-making in sports, top corporations, universities, hospitals, etc. Finally Barack Obama, a Democrat senator, was elected as President in 2008. The Democratic Party had become the dominant party for African-Americans over the last 80 years or so, but yet with an increasingly secular and non-Christian philosophy of public policy.
Summary of Providential Theory of Black History
Looking at the providential history of African Americans, it is clear that God raised up Christians to lead and bring Biblical progress. Using providential theory we have highlighted people who held to Biblical principles that brought healthy and true liberation. Ultimately what matters is not party or color, but transcendent truth.
But today godly leadership seems to be waning as secular and pagan philosophies take the lead. The natural family and biblical ideas of sexuality and gender, along with the transcendent principles of liberty articulated by the Founders and reaffirmed by Black leaders such as Douglass and King are under serious attack. Without those principles, real liberation is turned into licentiousness and will lead to decline and division of the nation. The wheat and the tares are growing together and a harvest is coming.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail is for paid subscribers below.
The content below was originally paywalled.
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]”
16 April 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 correspondence 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 statement 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 B.C. left their villages and carried 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 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.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and 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 narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought 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 power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all 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 brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter 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 broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before 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 by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.
Then it occurred to us that Birmingham’s mayoral 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 off, 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 direct 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 bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so 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 racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps 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 drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; 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 eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and 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 expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that 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.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. 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. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink 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? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro’s frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible “devil.”
I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the “do nothingism” of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as “rabble rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies–a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime–the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle–have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as “dirty nigger-lovers.” Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”
Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.
It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. 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 communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.