In the lead up to Dr. King’s arrest, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) had organized a large direct action campaign against the prevailing segregation system in Birmingham to put pressure on the city’s merchants during the Easter season. In solidarity, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had joined the ACMHR in protesting conditions in Birmingham (Bass, 2001). Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the founding leader of the ACMHR and an active civil rights campaigner, had stated that the protest was “a moral witness to give our community a chance to survive”. The campaign had been initially planned to start in early March 1963 but later rescheduled to April 2 following the victory of the relatively moderate Albert Boutwell over Eugene “Bull” Connor, Birmingham’s segregationist police commissioner, in a second-round mayoral election. Conner had a reputation for hostility and frequent violent treatment of blacks. For the past three years, about seventeen black churches and homes had been bombed (Bass, 2001).
In March 1963, Dr. King together with Ralph Abernathy and other SCLC organizers set up their headquarters in a motel room in one of Birmingham’s black neighbourhoods and begun recruiting volunteer to take part in non-violent protest rallies and workshops. The desegregation campaign was officially launched on April 3 with a series of mass meetings, systematic direct actions followed by lunch counter sit-ins, demonstrations to City Hall together with a boycott of downtown merchants (Bass, 2001). Many peaceful blacks were arrested daily and locked up while King sustained his negotiations with white businessmen who were incurring significant losses as a result of the protests. The number of protestors increased daily to include sit-ins at the library, kneel-ins at churches, and marches to the county building to register voters.
The city government obtained a state circuit court injunction on April 10 against the protests. The leaders of the campaign opted to disobey the court order on grounds that its was unjust, undemocratic as well as unconstitutional misuse of legal process. King convinced his fellow clergymen to lead a march on April 12, which fell on Good Friday. Many protestors including King and Ralph Abernathy were arrested by Birmingham police, where the leaders were each kept in solitary confinement and denied their right to a phone call (Bass, 2001). King’s request to call his wire Coretta Scott King was turned down by the jail officials. It was only after she called the White House that the Kennedy Administration sanctioned FBI agents to jail to ensure King receive more hospitable treatment and right to call home.
It was during his eight days stay at the Birmingham jail that King wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to be published in the Birmingham News. It was in response to a recent publication in the local newspaper by eight white clergymen who had termed the protests by the African American community as “unwise and untimely” and pleading “to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense”. King’s letter was purposely meant for a national audience (Bass, 2001).
In his letter, King reckons that the white moderates represented a greater threat to freedom as compared to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) whose bombing had claimed the lives of four black girls in the middle of Sunday services on September 15, 1963. King declares that neither the Ku Klux Klan nor the White Citizens Councils represented a more significant hurdle to the African American stride towards liberty like did the white moderates. He accuses the white moderates of being more devoted to “order” as opposed to justice due to their preference for a negative peace or lack of tension as opposed to positive peace which translates in presence of justice. King’s perspective are correct because the white moderates were opposed to the blacks engaging in direct action by asking them to wait for a “more convenient season” (Bass, 2001). This was testament that the white moderates had a mythical concept of time that inspired to determine the hour of freedom for another race. Indeed this shallow conception from supposedly men of good will was “more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will”, in this case the violent KKK (Bass, 2001). As such, King was wise to observe that a KKK member who showed outright opposition and hatred of the black people and their struggle for liberation was less of a threat than the “slicker than soap” con artist (in this case the white moderate) who marches alongside the African Americans at one time but hatch ill against them at another instance. Of course, there is no denying that the KKK, the White Citizens Council and similar overtly organized bodies had great hatred for the civil rights movement and desired for the annihilation of the Black community. However, King correctly observes that the “forces of darkness” (the KKK) were more open and passionate about their loathing of the black race unlike the white liberals who were full of pretence while they lacked genuine desire to attain equality of all people.
It is easy to understand King’s disappointment with the white clergymen whose action violated the first commandment of Christian teaching – “Thou shalt love thy neighbour” (Bass, 2001). The clergymen remained silent in the face of injustice meted against the black people in Birmingham. King expected the white church and its leadership to unite and lend support for the protests against segregation. Indeed the clergymen and southern Christians showed lack of morals by tolerating racism, segregation, and discrimination against another race. The white church was a big disappointment due its laxity and conformation to the white moderate’s opinion.
King chose the right way to fight for the African American rights – nonviolence. While this was time of massive turbulence in America and when other groups advocated for violence, King wisely opted for nonviolence. He feels that the non-violent approach was necessary so as to open lines of constructive communication between the white and the black people in Birmingham and across the nation (Bass, 2001). This indicates his strong attachment to core Christian values of love, brotherhood, hope, inclusion and to the ideals upon the American Republic was founded. This was the right way to run a crusade for a truly free, socially just and free America. To date, his non-violent mode of campaigning continues to inspire the American nation and people of the world.
Reference:
Bass, S. J. (2001). Blessed are the peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., eight white religious leaders, and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail. Baton Rouge, La: Louisiana State University Press.
