Letter from Birmingham Jail

I’ve talked about EdX here before.  I’ll repeat here that this is a website, www.edx.org, that is providing a wonderful service.  Some of the most prestigious universities across the world are offering free classes to learn many advanced and interesting subjects.

One that just started is a course studying the Pauline epistles.  This has been a fascinating course thus far.  I can’t say a lot of the information is new, but the discussions and ideas that get explored are fascinating.

At one point, our professor had us look at rhetoric and was particularly engaged with how Paul’s delivery changed depending on who he was writing to.  To drive the point home about how every person does this, we read a series of other historical letters, and one that stuck with me was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

The class was focused on how King presented himself to his audience, but I couldn’t help but read beyond that.  I’ve studied his life and listened to his “I Have a Dream” speech a couple times.  I’ve found him to be admirable and passionate.  Reading this letter, though... if better words ever came from the Twentieth Century, I don’t know what they are.

In this letter, King answered some criticisms he received from fellow clergymen regarding his nonviolent crusade to break the racial laws in the South.  The clergymen suggested that he should not get involved in such a direct manner but let justice run its course through the legal system.

King’s brilliant reply included this statement, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed... For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’... 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.’”

What is truly unique in King’s work is that even though his work was nonviolent, it was still a fight and he led others into battle with their faces towards their enemy and feet marching forward.  “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.”

The question that is so tempting to ask—at least it was for me—is, It’s a noble idea, but does it really work?

King asked that question as well.  “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?’”

I’ve been asking myself for a week now these same questions.  If something was important enough, would I be willing to suffer the same things that they prepared themselves for?  Is it even the right way to do things?  We’re a nation that has agreed that there are times for violent measures; the United States only came about because of violent war, and violent war has been used again for stability and to help bring peace in the world.  Was King’s way really the right way?

While I do believe there are times when violence is permissible to stem evil, King and his followers were trying to live a higher law, and it’s a law that Jesus taught in the glorious Sermon on the Mount:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.  And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”  (Matt. 5:38-41)

King showed us a way to live like Christ, apply the Savior’s teachings in a way that few had ever tried before, certainly not on grand scales like this (except, of course, Gandhi.)

I’ve recently had conversations regarding morality, nobility, and what heroism is.  Is it right to put your life into danger for a cause when you don’t have to?  King didn’t have to get involved. He could have stayed out and cared for his family, instead of going to jail and suffering great indignities for many years, putting hardship on himself and the loved ones around him.  Was it right of him to do so?

I, for one, feel strongly that, as high priority as we should give to ourselves and to our families, there are times when we have to sacrifice for the greater good.  It’s not enough to be concerned about our own personal spheres, we have to look after the whole community, because in the end, we are all related together.

King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  We are caught in an inescapable mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  (emphasis added)

I have long wanted to write an essay on the building of Zion.  If I never do, though, that last statement that I just quoted, especially the final sentence, says everything I would wish to be understood by my readers.  If that sentence, “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly,” were burned into hearts of every saint and we comprehended their full import, we would understand what it is to be of one heart and one mind.  On such a principle could that Zion be built.

Just one final quote from King regarding the state of justice.  King went to jail because he broke laws.  His answer was to say that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

This is a frank and open reminder that there is no compromise between good and evil. 

We often feel that this is a world in which there are various shades of gray.  That’s because our lives are imperfect.  We have strengths and we have weaknesses.  But just because we tend to waver, and often that wavering comes every single day, what is good and what is evil never changes.  They do not combine or mingle or cross from one line to the other.

We may live our lives moving from one camp to the other, but King reminded us here that if we are to be champions of good, we must actively and unashamedly fight the bad.  If there is an evil law, we are morally obligated to dishonor it, show it the contempt it deserves, and do all in our power to blast it into oblivion.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  Sadly, it’s an easy holiday to overlook.  Unless I’m in school where it’s required that they take the Monday off, I’ve tended to forget that it’s even there.  It’s not like we have firework shows, family get-togethers, or even a big feast to bring us in.

And yet we ought to take some time in this day to learn about this man’s life, consider what he taught, but more importantly, how he lived and the battle he fought to overcome one of the greatest evils in our nation’s history.  If you don’t know much about King, though, at least take the time to ponder the teachings, because they are truth and did not come from him.  He was merely a disciple of the truth, albeit an eloquent and provocative supporter of it.