Friends of the King.
2024-01-15
Dear friend,
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 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?
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote those words in a Birmingham, Alabama jail cell, where he resided from his arrest on April 12, 1863 to his release, along with that of other protesters, on April 20, on $160,000 bail.
It was King’s 13th arrest out of 29 for acts of civil disobedience. His treatment by the Birmingham police was harsh. The white segregationist leaders of Birmingham used the arrest to rebuke the presence of King and protesters organized by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
A replica of King’s Birmingham cell
Nonviolent protesters had, since April 3, been coordinating marches and sit-ins to disrupt racist segregation in Birmingham. King had chosen Birmingham for this action purposefully. While a new generation of civic leaders wanted to end racism there, incumbent officials like Bull Connor, Commissioner of Public Safety, stood in the way of progress in civil rights.
It wasn’t just the racist Connor who was against progress. King had met with President John F. Kennedy on October 16, 1961 to raise concerns about discrimination, and the lack of government action on it. King came away from the meeting feeling that while JFK had sympathy, he wanted to let change take place through the established political process.
Given the popular and moral success of the Civil Rights movement through the 1960s, JFK appears conservative and in retrospect, behind the times. But JFK had been elected in large part by Democratic southerners. He and Connor were both Democrats. The South voted as a bloc for Democratic presidents, at a time when Northern states voted Republican. (Including Vermont!)
In 1964, five Southern states flipped to vote against President Lyndon Johnson, who had embraced anti-discrimination policies and civil rights.
The 1964 presidential electoral map.
Richard Nixon and his advisors saw opportunity. In 1968 Nixon became President by picking up Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
How did he do it? Nixon deployed the “southern strategy” that he and numerous advisors saw as a golden opportunity—flip white Democrats to Republicans by driving a wedge between them and Black Americans. The “hippie” era and of the 1960s and the conservative response to it provided an opportunity for Nixon to run as a “law-and-order” candidate.
Nixon was racist without being explicit about it. As White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman described, Nixon “emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognized this while not appearing to.” Nixon spoke out against integration and for slowing anti-discrimination measures, but indirectly, by appealing to “states’ rights.”
Democrat Hubert Humphrey won only Texas. Independent George Wallace, who made an explicit racist appeal to voters, won in the states that previously flipped in 1964.
The 1968 election not only gave us much of the electoral map we have today. “Dogwhistle” politics resulted in electoral success in 1968 and since. It curses us to this day.
One of the things I hate the most about our politics today is how rotten it makes us feel about ourselves. Perhaps the greatest trick the devil ever played was making us feel bad about ourselves, and then convincing us he was never there.
The potential to be afraid of someone who looks different is probably coded deeply in our animal nature. But racism in its modern form was taught to us by elected leaders who saw advantage in it.
The end of the Civil War in 1865 made possible a blossoming of racial equality and reconciliation under “Reconstruction.” Former enslaved African-Americans participated fully in the rocky political process of that period.
However, the politics of the South swung toward elected leaders who saw political advantage in reinforcing racial stereotypes. They passed the “Jim Crow” laws that created a “separate-but-equal” society from the 1870s to 1965.
Once in power, the massive structures of institutionalized racism became self-reinforcing. Banking policies like “redlining,” in which Blacks couldn’t buy homes in affluent neighborhoods, meant that people of different backgrounds didn’t mix. I grew up in a rural, white area of upstate New York. My first Black classmate joined us in fifth grade. Enjoying friendship and familiarity with Black people, and people of all backgrounds, took me time and intention.
Is racism inevitable? I don’t think so. I think we need to stop tolerating leaders who reinforce divisions based on identity, and instead focus on policies that provide equal opportunity for everyone.
It’s also time to retire “cancel culture,” in all its forms. Instead of shaming people for saying something racist, or something possibly racist, what if we celebrate the opportunity for a conversation? This was why I put the googly eyes on the racist statue in Brattleboro—to play with our history, instead of fearing it.
The dissolution of racism means freedom for us all. To be ourselves. To be able to get to know anyone without fear of difference or fear of misspeaking. To organize ourselves not around hatred but around love.
If someone hasn’t gotten this good news—if their statements or actions seem mistaken or misguided—we have the opportunity to invite them into a kind and loving conversation. Condemn the action, hold the possibility of grace for the person. Talk to them.
King's mugshot at his arrest on April 12, 1963
Martin Luther King, Jr. shows us how in writing his long letter from the Birmingham jail.
A friend of King’s had smuggled into his jail cell the April 12th newspaper, in which was printed “A Call for Unity.” This statement by eight white Alabama clergymen who called King and the SCLC outsiders. They told King to stop the civil disobedience and its disruptions. Their message -- elect new leadership, change the laws, and take action in the courts. Be patient.
King started writing an open letter in reply. He started writing in the margins of the newspaper itself. “The letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty,” wrote King in his later book, Why We Can’t Wait, “and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me.”
King has been described as being “provoked” by the clergyman. But his letter, published April 16, 1963, speaks back to them with patience and humility. Note the passage above in which he apologizes for its length.
King also spoke with moral clarity. Here's the passage where King describes his choice to travel to Birmingham:
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown. 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.
The most celebrated moment in King's life may be the ad-libbed, 17-minute "I Have a Dream" speech, on August 28, 1963 in front of the largest gathering of protesters ever in Washington.
Many moments led to that moment.
One took place in Concord, Mass., on July 24, 1846, when Henry David Thoreau was jailed for his refusal to pay taxes. In opposition to the Mexican–American War and slavery, he spent a night in jail. A friend intervened and paid his delinquent bill, leading to his release. Thoreau later wrote Civil Disobedience about his experience, which King read in his first year at Morehouse College.
King also took notes from Mohandas Gandhi's non-violent campaign in India, from the 1920s through independence from Britain in 1947.
King said, “Christ showed us the way and Gandhi in India showed it could work.”
In 1962, King called Gandhi, born a Hindu, “the greatest Christian of the modern world.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his office, image of Gandhi on his wall
Not everyone that influenced King's life is a household name. The eight clergymen who provoked King, the friend who smuggled in the newspaper, the thousands of protesters who walked with King arm-in-arm, even the police who beat them up.
Given all these experiences, a narrow cell, the margins of the paper, and a pen, King wrote his heart out.
He signed off as follows:
If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR
In honor of the King's birthday, this January 15, 2024, I'll echo that.
Yours for the cause of peace and brotherhood,
Rep. Tristan Roberts
Vermont House of Representatives
P.S. Letter from a Birmingham Jail is easy to find online. Or, just reply to this email with your address. I'll mail you your personal copy as a gift in honor of King's legacy.