[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 61 (Tuesday, April 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2308-S2313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



        Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail

  Mr. JONES. Madam President, I rise today to honor a great American, 
an American whose words lit a flame of hope in the hearts of those 
souls who had become weary with the weight of injustice, an American 
whose struggles, ideals--and, yes, his dreams--are etched in the 
foundation of our Nation.
  On April 12, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested in my 
hometown of Birmingham, AL. His crime? Leading a peaceful march to 
protest the indignity suffered by the Black community in the Jim Crow 
era. He had violated Birmingham public safety commissioner ``Bull'' 
Connor's ban on public demonstrations, which targeted the growing 
resistance of African Americans to the injustices they were suffering.
  While in solitary confinement in Birmingham, Dr. King wrote what 
became known as the ``Letter from Birmingham Jail''--a stinging 
response to a group of White clergy in Alabama who had denounced his 
tactics and questioned the wisdom and timing of his arrival in 
Birmingham.
  They insisted that he was an outside agitator coming to Alabama to 
instigate trouble. Dr. King responded famously: ``Injustice anywhere is 
a threat to justice everywhere.''
  In his letter, he rejected the idea that African Americans should be 
more patient for change in the face of the daily indignities inflicted 
by segregation and in the face of violence and threats and 
intimidation. He wrote: ``There comes a time when the cup of endurance 
runs over.''
  While I did not experience this struggle as a young child--a young 
White child growing up in the nearby Birmingham suburb--I spent much of 
my adult life and career as a lawyer and former U.S. attorney examining 
the history and absorbing its lessons. I have often returned to Dr. 
King's letter to understand the forces at play at the height of the 
civil rights struggle. Each time I read his words, I am in awe of his 
courage and resolve in the face of such incredible personal risk.
  While we have come so far and while we have made great progress in 
loosening the binds of racial injustice that have constrained and 
suffocated our Nation for so many years, we have not yet fully relieved 
the weight of our country's abominable history of slavery, segregation, 
and racial discrimination.
  That is why I rise today. It is our civic duty and I believe our 
moral obligation to remember Dr. King's words and his deeds, to tell 
his story, to appreciate that 1963 was not all that long ago, and to 
reflect on how many things have changed and how many have not. Our 
obligation is to honor Dr. King's

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legacy by joining him in envisioning the mountaintop and working to 
make real his famous dream that our Nation will rise up and live out 
the true meaning of the creed: ``We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal.'' That is why we rise today.
  Dr. King saw an America that had the potential to live up to its 
lofty ideals, where every man, woman, and child had an equal 
opportunity to succeed and to live a life free from discrimination. He 
saw the good in our country when it would have been easier for him to 
see the bad. It is that positive spirit and clarity of vision that made 
his legacy so enduring.
  Today, we will honor that legacy by reading the letter from the 
Birmingham jail in its entirety in the Senate Chamber.
  I am honored to be joined today by Martin Luther King III, who is in 
the Gallery--the oldest son of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King--as well 
as my old friend Charles Steele, the president of the Southern 
Christian Leadership Conference and a reverend. Together, they are at 
the forefront of the modern civil rights movement and personally carry 
on the legacy that Dr. King bequeathed us.
  I am also very grateful that several of my colleagues on both sides 
of the political aisle will stand with me to read portions of the 
letter today. I want to thank Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, 
Ted Cruz of Texas, Kamala Harris of California, Tim Kaine of Virginia, 
and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for participating in this historic reading 
today.
  I urge the rest of our colleagues, anyone in the Gallery, and anyone 
watching at home on television to consider what we might still learn 
today from this powerful message about justice and freedom from 
oppression and the indifference of people who stand idly by when their 
fellow Americans are persecuted.
  To begin the reading of the letter, I would like to yield to my 
colleague from Tennessee, my friend Senator Alexander.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for 
including me today in the reading of Dr. King's letter from the 
Birmingham jail.
  Senator Jones has standing to do this not just because he is from 
Alabama but because of his work as a U.S. attorney prosecuting Klansmen 
who blew up a church on 16th Street in Birmingham, killing children.
  Senator Jones said that all of this was not too long ago. It was not 
too long ago for me. I remember a day--on August 28, 1963. I was a 
student at that time at New York University School of Law with an 
internship in the U.S. Department of Justice. It was a hot summer day, 
and the streets were filled with the March on Washington. It was about 
lunchtime, I believe, that I went outside into that crowd, and I heard 
a booming voice from a man who was standing on the steps of the Lincoln 
Memorial. I heard the words that he hoped his four little children one 
day would ``live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color 
of their skin.'' I am not sure, at that time and at that age, that I 
understood fully what I was seeing and hearing, but I was hearing Dr. 
King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech.
  In 1962, a year earlier, I was a senior at Vanderbilt University in 
Nashville. It was not that long ago, but a lot has changed since then. 
Vanderbilt, a prestigious institution, just in that year was 
desegregating its undergraduate school. I was a part of that effort. 
But even then, Black Americans couldn't go to the same restaurants, 
stay at the same motels, or go to the same bathrooms--even then, and it 
was not that long ago.
  Four months before I heard Dr. King speak in August of 1963, he wrote 
a letter from the Birmingham jail on the 16th of April, 1963. This was 
Dr. King's letter:

       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.''

  Dr. King's letter went on to say:

       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.

  Dr. King's letter continues:

       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 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?''

  Dr. King's letter continues:

       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.

  Dr. King continued:

       Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and 
     to this end we endured postponement after postponement. 
     Having

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     aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action 
     program could be delayed no longer.

  Madam President, I yield the floor to the Senator from California, 
Ms. Harris.
  Ms. HARRIS. I thank the Senator from Tennessee.
  Dr. King continues:

       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 [I] 
     find it difficult to wait.

  I would now like to yield to my colleague Senator Cruz from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, Dr. King's profoundly just and moral 
letter from the Birmingham jail continued:

       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 [law] 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 the 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

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     everything that 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 goodwill 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 for 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.

  Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. I thank the Senator from Texas.
  Continuing:

       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 coworkers 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 in 
     the 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 through 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 yield to the Senator from Alaska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. He continues:

       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

[[Page S2312]]

     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.

  Mr. President, I yield to my friend from Alabama and thank him for 
his leadership.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. President, Dr. King continues:

       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

[[Page S2313]]

     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 the 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 Judeo 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 clergymen 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.

  Mr. President, I am struck by a fortuitous phrase in the closing of 
this remarkable letter: ``One day the South will recognize its real 
heroes.''
  The South will recognize its real heroes indeed--heroes like Dr. 
King, like Rosa Parks, like my old friend Fred Shuttlesworth; heroes 
like Congressman John Lewis, like Fannie Lou Hamer, like Ida B. Wells; 
heroes like the countless others who stood alongside them in the fight 
for civil rights and like the innocent victims swept up in the brutal 
crackdowns during this hopeful movement toward universal human dignity.
  We carry on their legacy in our daily lives--in our schools, in our 
houses of worship, in our workplaces, and throughout our society. That 
includes in the institution of the U.S. Senate. It is also carried on 
in the work of Dr. King's family members, like Martin Luther King III.
  Dr. King wrote his letter in the midst of this struggle and knew that 
much work still lay ahead. Less than 6 months after his arrest, the 
Klan in Birmingham planted a bomb outside the ladies' lounge of the 
16th Street Baptist Church, and it killed four innocent young African-
American girls.
  A year later, though, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 
The year after that, it passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Historic 
changes were afoot. Yet, despite this incredible historic progress--or 
perhaps because of it--in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was 
assassinated in Memphis, TN. He was just 39 years old. He gave his life 
for this cause. He gave his life in a struggle during which so many 
gave their lives.
  We have to remember this is not ancient history. We know that we 
still have our challenges albeit in a world that has, no doubt, 
benefited tremendously from the progress he achieved, but it is still a 
work in progress. It will always be a work in progress.
  If we truly believe in carrying on his legacy, we must recognize that 
we cannot stand idly by when we see injustice and that we cannot stand 
idly by when we see a reemergence of hateful rhetoric in our public 
discourse. We have seen it before. We have seen it before in Birmingham 
and elsewhere. We have seen before the devastating violence that can 
follow, and it lives with us today. It lives with us today in tragedies 
like those of Charleston, Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and now New 
Zealand.
  We need to strive not just for civility but to make sure we live in a 
country that does not hold each other in contempt. That bears 
repeating. We talk a lot in this Chamber about civility and respect and 
dignity, but the fact is, when we leave this Chamber and go out into 
the world, people will hold each other in contempt more so than is just 
public discourse. That has to change, ladies and gentlemen. It has to 
change. Importantly, we--each of us--should continue to do our part to 
ensure that the art of the moral universe continues to bend toward 
justice.
  I thank my colleagues who joined me this evening for this historic 
event. It has been an honor and a privilege.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The Senator from Ohio.