[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 61 (Wednesday, April 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2006-S2011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, it is my honor to--this is something I
get to do once a year now--it is my honor to join Senator Rounds of
South Dakota and Senator Hirono from Hawaii, and then Senator Collins
later, Senator Baldwin, Senator Romney, and Senator Warnock, to join my
colleagues of both parties on the floor to read one of the greatest
pieces of writing of the 20th century, Dr. King's letter from the
Birmingham jail.
I thank those Senators for joining us. Our former colleague, Senator
Doug Jones, began this tradition. He did it in 2019 and 2020. As he
left the Senate in late 2020, he asked me to continue the tradition
that he began. He would have been here on the floor with us to watch
and to listen, but he was called to the White House on his work with
Judge Jackson.
This is a bipartisan reading. I very purposely chose three Republican
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friends--Senator Rounds will go first--and three Democrat friends,
followed by Senator Hirono. And let me just lay out where we are and
what we are doing.
It is April 1963. Dr. King was held in the Birmingham Jail for the
supposed crime of leading a series of peaceful protests and boycotts in
the city of Birmingham, AL. The goal was to put pressure on the
business community to end discrimination in their hiring for local
jobs. Some White ministers from Alabama would take issue with these
boycotts. They said: Slow down, Dr. King. Don't move too fast. We are
for voting rights, too. We are for ending discrimination, but don't
demand too much all at once.
Dr. King rejected that premise. That is what this letter is about. It
is about demanding justice now for people in Alabama whose skin was
Black and who simply could not vote because of the color of their skin.
We can't wait around and hope that problems in families' lives will
solve themselves. It is up to us as citizens, as leaders, as members of
our churches in our communities.
Dr. King made this point more eloquently and persuasively, certainly,
than I can. We will begin the reading of the letter with Senator Rounds
from South Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. ROUNDS. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate:
First of all, to my friend and colleague, Senator Brown, I thank you
for the opportunity to participate today, and I hope to do my best to
add a feeling of strength to the message that Dr. Martin Luther King
shared in his letter.
This is a reading from a ``Letter From Birmingham Jail,'' Dr. Martin
L. King Jr., April 16, 1963.
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came
across your recent statement calling my present activities
``unwise and untimely.'' Seldom do I pause to answer
criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the
criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have
little time for anything other than such 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 byproduct 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.
Ms. HIRONO.
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
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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 country 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 [a racial slur],
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.
Ms. COLLINS.
I hope, sirs, that 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 to consciously 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.
Mr. BROWN.
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 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
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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.
Ms. BALDWIN.
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 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.
Mr. ROMNEY.
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
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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.
Mr. WARNOCK.
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 it 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's 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 unreasonably 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.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, thanks to my colleagues, Senator Warnock,
Senator Baldwin in the Presiding Officer's Chair, Senator Rounds,
Senator Hirono, Senator Collins, and Senator Romney for joining me to
read these powerful words today.
This tradition began in 2019 when Senator Doug Jones from Alabama, a
leader in the civil rights movement, as Senator Warnock who just spoke
also is--he began this tradition in 2019. And then when he left the
Senate in 2020, he asked me to continue and together read these
powerful words--a diverse group on the floor today. We come from
different backgrounds. We disagree on a number of things. We love this
country. We know we can do better for the people who make it work.
In my meeting yesterday with Judge Jackson--soon to be Justice
Jackson--we talked about the deep connection between civil rights and
workers' rights. Dr. King spoke to labor audiences throughout his life.
He preached with a unique eloquence about the inherent dignity of work.
He said that
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``so often we overlook the work and significance of those who are not
in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs .
. . Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for
the building of humanity,'' Dr. King said, ``it has dignity and it has
worth.'' He said that ``no labor is really menial unless you're not
getting adequate wages.''
I think about the campaign Dr. King waged when he was assassinated.
We will never forget that he was martyred in Memphis while fighting for
some of the most exploited workers in the country: sanitation workers
in segregated Memphis.
We know too many workers face a similar exploitation today. We have
seen, over the past 2 years, how many workers corporations call
essential but treat as expendable. It is their whole business model.
It is not a coincidence that many of those workers look like the ones
for whom Dr. King was fighting for, that they are not the ones in the
so-called--his words--``big jobs.''
When on occasion, a company tries to do the right thing when they
announce a pay raise or investment in workers, often Wall Street
punishes them.
This week, Starbucks--a corporation currently fighting its own
workers trying to organize a union--announced they are throwing a bone
to workers. The company is going to do a little tiny bit less in
executive compensation in the form of stock buybacks this year and do
some investment in the workers instead, and their stock price went
down. The Wall Street business model doesn't just do nothing for
workers--pardon the grammar--it actively discourages investment in
workers.
It has to change. Until hard work pays off for all workers, Dr.
King's work remains unfinished. That means paying all workers a living
wage. Senator Warnock is still on the floor, and Senator Baldwin, the
Presiding Officer, are two of the people that fight the hardest for
that.
All workers must make a living wage, have more power over their
schedule, provide good benefits and safety on the job, and not fight
organizing a union. That means all workers get a fair share of the
wealth that they create. It means recognizing the dignity of the
communities that Black Americans have built over generations. That is
how we bring ourselves closer to the society that Dr. King envisioned
where all labor has dignity.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PETERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.