I've listened to a couple of Guillermo del Toro interviews and really like him as a person, but I've heard mixed things at best about his movies. So amidst the hoopla of the Mexican triumvirate of del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron (CHILDREN OF MEN) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (BABEL), it was with mild enthusiasm I went to PAN'S LABYRINTH last night.
Quite frankly, what's all the fuss about?
Then I saw CHILDREN OF MEN. While it had some tense, harrowing scenes, I found its dystopia one more in the family, and quite frankly, not up to match, say, of Cameron's TERMMINATOR or TERMINATOR 2. You can balk all you want, but I'll stand by that forever. And don't get me started on the racial implications...
I'm a man without a corporation. ~Paddy Chayefsky
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Tribute: GOAT @ 65
For a little APA boy coming up on the mean streets of East Los in the turbulent 60's/70's, sports provided an out. Not as a realistic way of making a living, but socially, culturally, psychologically. Aside from the way being an athlete constructed manhood, it bonded neighborhoods, schools and teams, just like in white neighborhoods.
And let's face it, bottom line, sports were fun.
We played seasonally; basketball, football and baseball. No tennis in el barrio. And despite being almost 100% Latino, no soccer either.
As absent as he was in my life, my father managed to instill a love for boxing through stories of him paying just to watch Sugar Ray (the original) train. None of my close friends boxed, but we followed boxing religiously, and we had THE decade, the 70's.
With no role models for APAs outside of Bruce Lee who was, after all, an actor playing at fighting, I turned to athletes. I worshipped Elgin Baylor, who I caught at the very end of his career. No less than Red Auerbach said that "Elg" was the greatest forward he'd ever seen. (R.I.P. Red)
But Ali, - the former Cassius Clay - was clearly in a class by himself. Needless to say, he made a deep impression on me, particularly for his stance on the war.
It's about the white man sending black men to fight yellow men to protect the country they stole from the red man.
And, rightly or wrongly attributed, the famous: No Vietcong ever called me a nigger, which was probably taken from, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." Either way, for anyone who was a mud peep poc with an ounce of brains, let alone an Asian mud peep, that spoke just as powerfully as any "I have a dream" speech.
Powerful indeed to a young, fatherless, impressionable APA boy.
My heart sank in Superfight I as Frazier's legendary left hook found my hero's right-side jaw late in the fight - I recall it was the 14th. I remember seeing the pictures of the red tassles on his adidas - so slick and pimped out - wildly flying as he hit the canvas. I'll never forget Anthony Aceves, a hardcore Frazier fan, laughing at me the next day, and my rage at Smokin' Joe's "lucky punch."
This was before cable, so we had to watch the news reports and listen to the radio. Stoneage!
But then closed circuit TV came into play, where essentially a pay-per-view setup was installed in a large setting, like a sports arena.
And it was then, September 30, 1975, in the Long Beach Arena, where my older friend Ike drove us to watch the Thrilla in Manila on a gerry-rigged big screen.
And my heart began to sink again as the titans warred like gods on earth. I had Frazier ahead into the deep rounds. Of note, this was back in the day of 15 round fights...
And then Frazier's mouthpiece flew out and Ali somehow let loose with a flurry that clearly stunned Joe. The place erupts, and I can't hear anything, but feel electricity in the air. It's a moment seared into memory forever.
Ali would say afterward that it was the closest he'd ever come to dying. He also gave props to Smokin' Joe, calling him, more or less, the second greatest of all times.
I somehow missed the Rumble in the Jungle on closed circuit, but all of the bookies had Ali a HUGE underdog to Foreman.
Before Mike Tyson, there was Foreman, the meanest, baddest cat on the planet. Put it this way, as bad as Ken Norton was, he of the broke Ali's jaw fame, Foreman hit Norton so hard Norton looked like he needed his mama - BAD.
Foreman had an even easier time with "the second greatest of all times." I have never seen a great athlete so dominated as Frazier was by Foreman - I think it was their second fight. I remember me an mah boy Kev rollin' when recounting how hard Foreman hit Frazier. At one point, Frazier got popped and actually left the ground, then did a bunny hop in the pea patch. Kev said he got knocked the fuck back to the schoolyard and was playin' hop scotch or something. We wuz ROLLIN' cuz... well, you just have to see the fight to understand.
Kids these days... Foreman would have destroyed Tyson. Foreman would have destroyed Sonny Liston, Marciano (way too small) and any of the big lug "scary" fighters. (And lest all you Tyson bullet heads STILL wanna argue, let's remember and be clear - Tyson was a small heavyweight. 5'11". Limited skills. Never fought anyone great in their prime.)
The ONLY way to beat Foreman was strategically, surgically, and of course our hero was the man.
One journalist said that this punch was a work of art:
It's tough to argue. Like anything strategic, it was set up with brains and executed with precision. If you watch the tape, Ali lands this historic punch, Foreman spins and begins his meeting with Mr. Canvas, and Ali could have landed another punch as insurance. Instead, he held back, watched as Foreman went to his place down below.
I don't recall what happened that Rumble in the Jungle fight night, but I missed it. The following morning, I walked to school alone for some reason - usually me and 4 others made the trek. But that morning after I took an intentional detour so I could pass by the liquor store near Lito's Cork Room (the neighborhood bar and bookie joint). I went with trepidation, fully expecting to read of my hero's demise. Again, I believe Ali was a huge underdog, at least 4-1.
Then I saw it on the rack, the front page of the LA Times: ALI KO'S FOREMAN IN 8 (or whatever the headline was) complete with a picture.
My heart leaped and I felt as if I were dreaming, floating.
Those two fights, both among my top five, were great boxing matches and, unlike today's sports, cultural event markers of a decade that saw the last vestiges of "something in the air."
From great moral stands to being awestruck by the size of his nuts to making me laff poking fun at Cosell, there's so much more that I could say about what this man has meant in my life. But I remember this, and it's somehow fitting that it should come from his partner who will forever be locked in history with him; It was reported after that war of the gods I mentioned earlier called the Thrilla in Manila, that Smokin' Joe said:
Man, I hit him with shots that could take down buildings.
Lawdy, lawdy, he's a great champion.
And let's face it, bottom line, sports were fun.
We played seasonally; basketball, football and baseball. No tennis in el barrio. And despite being almost 100% Latino, no soccer either.
As absent as he was in my life, my father managed to instill a love for boxing through stories of him paying just to watch Sugar Ray (the original) train. None of my close friends boxed, but we followed boxing religiously, and we had THE decade, the 70's.
With no role models for APAs outside of Bruce Lee who was, after all, an actor playing at fighting, I turned to athletes. I worshipped Elgin Baylor, who I caught at the very end of his career. No less than Red Auerbach said that "Elg" was the greatest forward he'd ever seen. (R.I.P. Red)
But Ali, - the former Cassius Clay - was clearly in a class by himself. Needless to say, he made a deep impression on me, particularly for his stance on the war.
It's about the white man sending black men to fight yellow men to protect the country they stole from the red man.
And, rightly or wrongly attributed, the famous: No Vietcong ever called me a nigger, which was probably taken from, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." Either way, for anyone who was a mud peep poc with an ounce of brains, let alone an Asian mud peep, that spoke just as powerfully as any "I have a dream" speech.
Powerful indeed to a young, fatherless, impressionable APA boy.
My heart sank in Superfight I as Frazier's legendary left hook found my hero's right-side jaw late in the fight - I recall it was the 14th. I remember seeing the pictures of the red tassles on his adidas - so slick and pimped out - wildly flying as he hit the canvas. I'll never forget Anthony Aceves, a hardcore Frazier fan, laughing at me the next day, and my rage at Smokin' Joe's "lucky punch."
This was before cable, so we had to watch the news reports and listen to the radio. Stoneage!
But then closed circuit TV came into play, where essentially a pay-per-view setup was installed in a large setting, like a sports arena.
And it was then, September 30, 1975, in the Long Beach Arena, where my older friend Ike drove us to watch the Thrilla in Manila on a gerry-rigged big screen.
And my heart began to sink again as the titans warred like gods on earth. I had Frazier ahead into the deep rounds. Of note, this was back in the day of 15 round fights...
And then Frazier's mouthpiece flew out and Ali somehow let loose with a flurry that clearly stunned Joe. The place erupts, and I can't hear anything, but feel electricity in the air. It's a moment seared into memory forever.
Ali would say afterward that it was the closest he'd ever come to dying. He also gave props to Smokin' Joe, calling him, more or less, the second greatest of all times.
I somehow missed the Rumble in the Jungle on closed circuit, but all of the bookies had Ali a HUGE underdog to Foreman.
Before Mike Tyson, there was Foreman, the meanest, baddest cat on the planet. Put it this way, as bad as Ken Norton was, he of the broke Ali's jaw fame, Foreman hit Norton so hard Norton looked like he needed his mama - BAD.
Foreman had an even easier time with "the second greatest of all times." I have never seen a great athlete so dominated as Frazier was by Foreman - I think it was their second fight. I remember me an mah boy Kev rollin' when recounting how hard Foreman hit Frazier. At one point, Frazier got popped and actually left the ground, then did a bunny hop in the pea patch. Kev said he got knocked the fuck back to the schoolyard and was playin' hop scotch or something. We wuz ROLLIN' cuz... well, you just have to see the fight to understand.
Kids these days... Foreman would have destroyed Tyson. Foreman would have destroyed Sonny Liston, Marciano (way too small) and any of the big lug "scary" fighters. (And lest all you Tyson bullet heads STILL wanna argue, let's remember and be clear - Tyson was a small heavyweight. 5'11". Limited skills. Never fought anyone great in their prime.)
The ONLY way to beat Foreman was strategically, surgically, and of course our hero was the man.
One journalist said that this punch was a work of art:
It's tough to argue. Like anything strategic, it was set up with brains and executed with precision. If you watch the tape, Ali lands this historic punch, Foreman spins and begins his meeting with Mr. Canvas, and Ali could have landed another punch as insurance. Instead, he held back, watched as Foreman went to his place down below.
I don't recall what happened that Rumble in the Jungle fight night, but I missed it. The following morning, I walked to school alone for some reason - usually me and 4 others made the trek. But that morning after I took an intentional detour so I could pass by the liquor store near Lito's Cork Room (the neighborhood bar and bookie joint). I went with trepidation, fully expecting to read of my hero's demise. Again, I believe Ali was a huge underdog, at least 4-1.
Then I saw it on the rack, the front page of the LA Times: ALI KO'S FOREMAN IN 8 (or whatever the headline was) complete with a picture.
My heart leaped and I felt as if I were dreaming, floating.
Those two fights, both among my top five, were great boxing matches and, unlike today's sports, cultural event markers of a decade that saw the last vestiges of "something in the air."
From great moral stands to being awestruck by the size of his nuts to making me laff poking fun at Cosell, there's so much more that I could say about what this man has meant in my life. But I remember this, and it's somehow fitting that it should come from his partner who will forever be locked in history with him; It was reported after that war of the gods I mentioned earlier called the Thrilla in Manila, that Smokin' Joe said:
Man, I hit him with shots that could take down buildings.
Lawdy, lawdy, he's a great champion.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Invasion of the Mud Peeps, or, Hoi Polloi as Hoity Toity, Xmas Party 06
I wanted to write about Fish and I at her company's Xmas party with some distance because, well, if I had written straight away I'd have been savage. Here's the setup...
Fish works on the plantation of a business that is, let's just say, a player in LA. As I write this they have their fingers in the midst of some major jobs downtown and at Universal Studios. So their annual Xmas party comes up at no less than the LA Country Club. (LACC, not to be confused here with Los Angeles City College)
Now, the LACC has a weird kind of spectre status in LA - very few even know where it's at, have seen it, much less been there. I'm talking about the unwashed masses of us mud peeps, nomsayin'? Like gated communities, security here is to keep the riff raff mud peeps out.
So it was with bemusement, to say the least, that I, oh dear reader, went with Fish to this gig.
Now, that isn't to say all mud peeps are out - obviously, Fish and I snuck in. But more on this later. There's too much fun, first...
It's conservative and stuffy.
If it looks plantation-ish that's probably no mistake. More stuffiness, courtesy of the men's ante room:
As we entered the lobby there was an elaborate snowscape replete with train, windmills, etc., but I could only snap this small portion of it in passing as Fish was dragging me in.
First, get drunk. No matter what your status in society, peeps have proven that they likes ta get HIGH. So they move us as a prelude to the bar/greeting/piano room. Groovy. Get down, Bill Evans...
Yeah, it was packed full of peeps who look like this:
Apart from the help mud peeps, Fish and I stood out. The cursory intros were made, and they were all quite pleasant, in that pat your head kind of way.
It's always interesting to me to watch the privileged move amongst the mud peeps. One would think it'd be the other way around, but since I identify with the streets, it's not nearly as interesting to me to watch the mud peeps; there are exceptions, tho, as we'll see.
What characterizes white people amongst the mud peeps for me is a strange mix of unawareness and unctuousness; whites are totally oblivious to "the help" except when they need a drink. They'll rarely look them in the eye, never smile at them, let alone say "please," or "thanks." They are, in a phrase, just some rude motherfuckers for whom racist-capitalism serves all too well and suppresses mud peeps. And god forbid they should ever engage a mud peep in a down to earth convo.
White person: That's very interesting, Adoo.
Mud Peep: My name is "Azu."
WP: And what brought you to America?
MP: I came here to go to school.
WP: Oh, what school is that?
MP: Brandeis.
WP: Oh...
It reminds me of Ellison telling of porters and clerks when he was a young man who were black. The thing of it was that white folks never in their wildest dreams suspected that doctors and lawyers were carrying their luggage and doing the lifting.
Then came a clarion call, or rather, the call to grub. It came via lovely bell tones, courtesy of some mud peeps:
Yes, Oh dear reader, that's a mini xylophone sir mud peep is holding. He'd walk around mallet in hand and hit out three notes and, right on cue, the walls opened up and the white folks moved right past the mud peeps to their just desserts. Haha.
Yes, this place was as if Marie Callendar had died and gone to heaven. As Stan Lee coined: 'Nuff said.
So, we happened to luck out and were seated with another young couple Fish happens to know. Everyone else was old and uptight in that "never talk about sex" kind of way. That doesn't mean they weren't cordial - they were. But it's the cordiality born of perfunctoriness.
With that the mud peeps brought out the salads, and we're seated in the midst of this:
I'm actually having a good time, number one cuz I'm with Fish and she's lookin' finer than all the other gals, but also because I'd forgotten what it was to be in a really privileged atmosphere. It was repulsive and perversely amusing at the same time, if that makes any sense.
Main course is up now: filet, salmon, creamed spinach, and some really great taters (I LOVES taters, maybe more than rice!).
Now, of course, the table banter ensues, and yes, dear reader, yours truly can "flap his yap," according to Fish. So when all the prelims are done and the weeding out has commenced and gone, Fish and I settle in with the young couple.
It went pleasantly enough; the mud peeps stayed invisible to white people until they were called for something; the mud peeps never betrayed their disdain for white people; and I never once betrayed my loathing for a system that places people in such an awkward situation. What was interesting was how at one point everyone was talking about their jobs - standard fare. As they made the rounds it became painfully evident that while they made very good money by most standards, some perhaps slovenly so because it was the result of birthright or connections, all of them to a one were in work that was b-o-r-i-n-g.
So it was, Oh dear reader, that your boy was dreading but with bemusement his turn at the lecturn. When I revealed my servitude to the evil empire, all eyes turned and ears perked. So I spent the next few minutes downplaying and then putting a nail in the coffin by saying, "It's really diminished my view of humanity." Boy, that takes the air out of the room. Of course, they could never know how little of a baby step that is for me.
What's amazing about the hoity toity is how easily their shields recover. No matter how squarely between the eyes you hit them; Watts Riots, check; LA '92, check; anti-war protests, check; Watergate, check; Iran/Contra, check; Savings and Loans scam, check; junk bonds, check; Enron... or even how boring and lifeless their existence is.
Their world view, and more importantly, their personal and collective pov of their place in that world view, reified by corporations, governments, police, politicians, the kind of health care they receive, the type of work they do (no matter how boring, truly the height of miserable-ism!), the courts/penal system, their education.... It comforts them from any storm - even when it's pointed out to them that, at best, it's just a shield like any other and that in the end, we all face one common "foe" in death.
But boy howdy, then came dessert!!! Great wafers with decadent homemade ice cream, custard, raspberries and cream and syrup and... damn. That shit was bombazz.
Now came the fun part; FUNKY WHITE FOLKS!
The house band played covers, of course. All white band, save for their mud peep brotha lead singer.
All in all, it was highly amusing. Even LACC's paper napkins are made of that grade of paper that feels sorta cloth like. Corny logo tho:
So to sum up
Fish's coat was great:
Food was good.
Event was as expected and perversely entertaining, but I wouldn't want a steady diet of it.
White folks want to get funky wit it.
I can function in a privileged atmosphere until I betray myself.
Mud peeps was cool and invisible except when more (fill in the blank) was needed.
The best lookin' couple was at our table. Well at least the one with the regular sized head:
CODA
As we drove out, I took notice; at the street entrance, there's just ivy and a non-descript sign, off to the west, stuck low in the ground. It's lit with a light, and has an address on it. No name. Nothing else.
Fish works on the plantation of a business that is, let's just say, a player in LA. As I write this they have their fingers in the midst of some major jobs downtown and at Universal Studios. So their annual Xmas party comes up at no less than the LA Country Club. (LACC, not to be confused here with Los Angeles City College)
Now, the LACC has a weird kind of spectre status in LA - very few even know where it's at, have seen it, much less been there. I'm talking about the unwashed masses of us mud peeps, nomsayin'? Like gated communities, security here is to keep the riff raff mud peeps out.
So it was with bemusement, to say the least, that I, oh dear reader, went with Fish to this gig.
Now, that isn't to say all mud peeps are out - obviously, Fish and I snuck in. But more on this later. There's too much fun, first...
It's conservative and stuffy.
If it looks plantation-ish that's probably no mistake. More stuffiness, courtesy of the men's ante room:
As we entered the lobby there was an elaborate snowscape replete with train, windmills, etc., but I could only snap this small portion of it in passing as Fish was dragging me in.
First, get drunk. No matter what your status in society, peeps have proven that they likes ta get HIGH. So they move us as a prelude to the bar/greeting/piano room. Groovy. Get down, Bill Evans...
Yeah, it was packed full of peeps who look like this:
Apart from the help mud peeps, Fish and I stood out. The cursory intros were made, and they were all quite pleasant, in that pat your head kind of way.
It's always interesting to me to watch the privileged move amongst the mud peeps. One would think it'd be the other way around, but since I identify with the streets, it's not nearly as interesting to me to watch the mud peeps; there are exceptions, tho, as we'll see.
What characterizes white people amongst the mud peeps for me is a strange mix of unawareness and unctuousness; whites are totally oblivious to "the help" except when they need a drink. They'll rarely look them in the eye, never smile at them, let alone say "please," or "thanks." They are, in a phrase, just some rude motherfuckers for whom racist-capitalism serves all too well and suppresses mud peeps. And god forbid they should ever engage a mud peep in a down to earth convo.
White person: That's very interesting, Adoo.
Mud Peep: My name is "Azu."
WP: And what brought you to America?
MP: I came here to go to school.
WP: Oh, what school is that?
MP: Brandeis.
WP: Oh...
It reminds me of Ellison telling of porters and clerks when he was a young man who were black. The thing of it was that white folks never in their wildest dreams suspected that doctors and lawyers were carrying their luggage and doing the lifting.
Then came a clarion call, or rather, the call to grub. It came via lovely bell tones, courtesy of some mud peeps:
Yes, Oh dear reader, that's a mini xylophone sir mud peep is holding. He'd walk around mallet in hand and hit out three notes and, right on cue, the walls opened up and the white folks moved right past the mud peeps to their just desserts. Haha.
Yes, this place was as if Marie Callendar had died and gone to heaven. As Stan Lee coined: 'Nuff said.
So, we happened to luck out and were seated with another young couple Fish happens to know. Everyone else was old and uptight in that "never talk about sex" kind of way. That doesn't mean they weren't cordial - they were. But it's the cordiality born of perfunctoriness.
With that the mud peeps brought out the salads, and we're seated in the midst of this:
I'm actually having a good time, number one cuz I'm with Fish and she's lookin' finer than all the other gals, but also because I'd forgotten what it was to be in a really privileged atmosphere. It was repulsive and perversely amusing at the same time, if that makes any sense.
Main course is up now: filet, salmon, creamed spinach, and some really great taters (I LOVES taters, maybe more than rice!).
Now, of course, the table banter ensues, and yes, dear reader, yours truly can "flap his yap," according to Fish. So when all the prelims are done and the weeding out has commenced and gone, Fish and I settle in with the young couple.
It went pleasantly enough; the mud peeps stayed invisible to white people until they were called for something; the mud peeps never betrayed their disdain for white people; and I never once betrayed my loathing for a system that places people in such an awkward situation. What was interesting was how at one point everyone was talking about their jobs - standard fare. As they made the rounds it became painfully evident that while they made very good money by most standards, some perhaps slovenly so because it was the result of birthright or connections, all of them to a one were in work that was b-o-r-i-n-g.
So it was, Oh dear reader, that your boy was dreading but with bemusement his turn at the lecturn. When I revealed my servitude to the evil empire, all eyes turned and ears perked. So I spent the next few minutes downplaying and then putting a nail in the coffin by saying, "It's really diminished my view of humanity." Boy, that takes the air out of the room. Of course, they could never know how little of a baby step that is for me.
What's amazing about the hoity toity is how easily their shields recover. No matter how squarely between the eyes you hit them; Watts Riots, check; LA '92, check; anti-war protests, check; Watergate, check; Iran/Contra, check; Savings and Loans scam, check; junk bonds, check; Enron... or even how boring and lifeless their existence is.
Their world view, and more importantly, their personal and collective pov of their place in that world view, reified by corporations, governments, police, politicians, the kind of health care they receive, the type of work they do (no matter how boring, truly the height of miserable-ism!), the courts/penal system, their education.... It comforts them from any storm - even when it's pointed out to them that, at best, it's just a shield like any other and that in the end, we all face one common "foe" in death.
But boy howdy, then came dessert!!! Great wafers with decadent homemade ice cream, custard, raspberries and cream and syrup and... damn. That shit was bombazz.
Now came the fun part; FUNKY WHITE FOLKS!
The house band played covers, of course. All white band, save for their mud peep brotha lead singer.
All in all, it was highly amusing. Even LACC's paper napkins are made of that grade of paper that feels sorta cloth like. Corny logo tho:
So to sum up
Fish's coat was great:
Food was good.
Event was as expected and perversely entertaining, but I wouldn't want a steady diet of it.
White folks want to get funky wit it.
I can function in a privileged atmosphere until I betray myself.
Mud peeps was cool and invisible except when more (fill in the blank) was needed.
The best lookin' couple was at our table. Well at least the one with the regular sized head:
CODA
As we drove out, I took notice; at the street entrance, there's just ivy and a non-descript sign, off to the west, stuck low in the ground. It's lit with a light, and has an address on it. No name. Nothing else.
Monday, January 15, 2007
MLK Day
MLK isn't a revered hero of mine, certainly not on par with Huey, Cesaire or Malcolm, however, this being his b-day I thought I'd throw up something of his that I read while in college. It's been that long since I read it, so, take it in the spirit of memory. I remember thinking it superior to his "I have a dream" speech and being impressed with it.
=================================================
LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
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 statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
------- *AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to. leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's prerogative of polishing it for publication. -------
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 an 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 Shuttles worth 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 bad 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 with with-drawl 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 mayoralty 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-oat 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.
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, we 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 South land 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 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 stiff 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 dark 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 no 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. 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 won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat 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 distort 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 awful. Paul Tillich 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 ace 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 anti religious 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 Councilor 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 good will 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 fan 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 an 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 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: "An 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 rational 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 co-workers 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 6e solid rock of human dignity.
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At fist I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that 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 and a 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 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 an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii be. We be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist 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, Jeans 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 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 non segregated 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 Rio 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 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 leader era; an 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, on 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 Walleye 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? l 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. Par 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 vi 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 jai 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, ham and all over the nation, because the goal of America k 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 handing 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 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 fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They viii 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 Judaeo-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 k 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 clergyman 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.
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LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
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 statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
------- *AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to. leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's prerogative of polishing it for publication. -------
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 an 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 Shuttles worth 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 bad 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 with with-drawl 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 mayoralty 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-oat 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.
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, we 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 South land 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 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 stiff 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 dark 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 no 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. 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 won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat 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 distort 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 awful. Paul Tillich 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 ace 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 anti religious 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 Councilor 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 good will 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 fan 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 an 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 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: "An 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 rational 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 co-workers 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 6e solid rock of human dignity.
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At fist I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that 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 and a 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 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 an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii be. We be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist 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, Jeans 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 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 non segregated 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 Rio 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 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 leader era; an 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, on 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 Walleye 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? l 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. Par 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 vi 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 jai 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, ham and all over the nation, because the goal of America k 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 handing 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 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 fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They viii 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 Judaeo-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 k 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 clergyman 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.
Un Chien Angeleno
"Fish" and I went to LACMA Saturday and caught the much hyped up Magritte show.
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Publishsrc="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69MTqwyTdYBMp2N4mPBUt6bTc3sECs0YQ2AT21lyv0NxSFxfoE77I0qns_mTstBbTStMOJi36lRANqWiP5mbOwGJcLbpkvmgGjjZemuItfZeVYCVq4vaFoHqa6s-70DavOjQX/s320/IMGP0127.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5020381944344240258" />
The show itself was ok, but not nearly as good as the Magritte retrospective at the Hammer a few years back. LACMA clearly has a much larger marketing budget than the Hammer had, as evidenced by the ancillary stuff, like this archway reverse silhouette of the famous bowler/Magritte figure:
The exhibit itself was designed by Baldessari and I was curious to see what that would be like, but it was namby pamby stuff like clouds on the carpet and a ceiling scape of (the LA?) freeway labyrinth.
With that, I will say that it's always a great experience to see certain works up close. Magritte is far from my favorite painter, much less Surrealist - I find him too facile. But he does have his points; paintings like, "Empire of Lights," and "Domain of Arnhem," and "The Lovers," are pretty cool.
Then we walked - quickly - through their French/Italian collection and were bored out of our minds. On to some Picasso drawings and more boredom.
Afterward we went to the modern collection and while I couldn't snap pics in the exhibits I snuck one of this piece, one of my faves by one of my faves...
Score.
Fish had these VIP tix so we felt really important - no lines, no messin' with the little peeps. Oh, much like the Xmas party at the LA Country Club - which I WILL post about - all of the attendants were mud peeps. And, in true form, LACMA made them all wear bowlers! Couldn't snap any pics of them but if I go back, which I doubt, I'll try.
Yeah, that's VIP ya punk azzes.
Publishsrc="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69MTqwyTdYBMp2N4mPBUt6bTc3sECs0YQ2AT21lyv0NxSFxfoE77I0qns_mTstBbTStMOJi36lRANqWiP5mbOwGJcLbpkvmgGjjZemuItfZeVYCVq4vaFoHqa6s-70DavOjQX/s320/IMGP0127.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5020381944344240258" />
The show itself was ok, but not nearly as good as the Magritte retrospective at the Hammer a few years back. LACMA clearly has a much larger marketing budget than the Hammer had, as evidenced by the ancillary stuff, like this archway reverse silhouette of the famous bowler/Magritte figure:
The exhibit itself was designed by Baldessari and I was curious to see what that would be like, but it was namby pamby stuff like clouds on the carpet and a ceiling scape of (the LA?) freeway labyrinth.
With that, I will say that it's always a great experience to see certain works up close. Magritte is far from my favorite painter, much less Surrealist - I find him too facile. But he does have his points; paintings like, "Empire of Lights," and "Domain of Arnhem," and "The Lovers," are pretty cool.
Then we walked - quickly - through their French/Italian collection and were bored out of our minds. On to some Picasso drawings and more boredom.
Afterward we went to the modern collection and while I couldn't snap pics in the exhibits I snuck one of this piece, one of my faves by one of my faves...
Score.
Fish had these VIP tix so we felt really important - no lines, no messin' with the little peeps. Oh, much like the Xmas party at the LA Country Club - which I WILL post about - all of the attendants were mud peeps. And, in true form, LACMA made them all wear bowlers! Couldn't snap any pics of them but if I go back, which I doubt, I'll try.
Yeah, that's VIP ya punk azzes.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
I Wanna Monkey, but not Dane Cook's Monkey
This is for muh boy, MM.
=======================
"I was talking to this girl the other day, and she said, "All guys want is sex." And I go, "Look, finish blowing me, and we'll talk about this later." That's a lie. I just said that cause it's funny. She actually said that. She goes, "That's all guys want, Dane, is sex." I said, "Neh." I said, there are other things guys want besides sex, we're just a little embarrased to admit it. I'm putting it on the universe so that you can respect and understand us for who we are as men. For example, any guy here, more than sex, if they had the choice of sex or this thing, any guy here would rather be part of a heist. You know every time you watch the movie Heat, you think, "I wanna do that." You wanna be running down Main St. with an AK-47, yelling, "Where's the van? The van was supposed to be here." We want the guy on the computer who's like, "Dude, I need one more minute." "Where's the fucking van?" .... I wanna be a part of a heist, and I wanna get shot right here in the back of the leg. It stings, but it makes me look kinda cool. *gunshot* "Ah shit. I keep looking at the blood, going, "Nah, nah, nah, nah. Where's the van??!"
We wanna be a part of a heist, and there's something else we want, more than the heist, more than the sex, we'd love to have a monkey. A pet monkey. And people get mad; there's always that one anti-monkey guy in the area who's like, "Excuse me, I overheard you saying that you'd like to have a monkey, and that's a horrible idea. You do not want a monkey. " They're a monkey expert, and they start listing off all the reasons you can not have a monkey. "Let me tell you a few things, if I could. If I could just tell you a few things about monkeys. that you don't know before you jump to your conclusion. Ok, it's more than just bananas and dancing with toothbrushes, ok? First of all, they crap in their hands, and throw it around in a festive manner, in a celebration of monkey poop. They make faces that are unacceptable in human society."
And I hear these things, and I'm like, "That's why I want a monkey, all those reasons." I don't want a nice, little quiet monkey. I want an evil monkey, that I can dress in armor, give him a sword, have fights with him inside my place. How pumped would you be, driving home from work, knowing that somewhere in your house, there is a monkey that you are going to battle? That's awesome! You walk in. "AARRGGHHH (monkey noise)." "Monkey? You here? "AARRGGHH." "Where are you?" "ARRGHH, I'm in your closet." "Holy shit, you just talked!" "I know, I taught myself to talk." "This is incredibly odd." "I know, let's fight!" "OK."
This would be the ultimate. What if, after the heist, you jump into the van, and the monkey is driving the van! "Get in! We've got to go!" It makes me sad, cause I know it will never happen.
-Dane Cook
=======================
"I was talking to this girl the other day, and she said, "All guys want is sex." And I go, "Look, finish blowing me, and we'll talk about this later." That's a lie. I just said that cause it's funny. She actually said that. She goes, "That's all guys want, Dane, is sex." I said, "Neh." I said, there are other things guys want besides sex, we're just a little embarrased to admit it. I'm putting it on the universe so that you can respect and understand us for who we are as men. For example, any guy here, more than sex, if they had the choice of sex or this thing, any guy here would rather be part of a heist. You know every time you watch the movie Heat, you think, "I wanna do that." You wanna be running down Main St. with an AK-47, yelling, "Where's the van? The van was supposed to be here." We want the guy on the computer who's like, "Dude, I need one more minute." "Where's the fucking van?" .... I wanna be a part of a heist, and I wanna get shot right here in the back of the leg. It stings, but it makes me look kinda cool. *gunshot* "Ah shit. I keep looking at the blood, going, "Nah, nah, nah, nah. Where's the van??!"
We wanna be a part of a heist, and there's something else we want, more than the heist, more than the sex, we'd love to have a monkey. A pet monkey. And people get mad; there's always that one anti-monkey guy in the area who's like, "Excuse me, I overheard you saying that you'd like to have a monkey, and that's a horrible idea. You do not want a monkey. " They're a monkey expert, and they start listing off all the reasons you can not have a monkey. "Let me tell you a few things, if I could. If I could just tell you a few things about monkeys. that you don't know before you jump to your conclusion. Ok, it's more than just bananas and dancing with toothbrushes, ok? First of all, they crap in their hands, and throw it around in a festive manner, in a celebration of monkey poop. They make faces that are unacceptable in human society."
And I hear these things, and I'm like, "That's why I want a monkey, all those reasons." I don't want a nice, little quiet monkey. I want an evil monkey, that I can dress in armor, give him a sword, have fights with him inside my place. How pumped would you be, driving home from work, knowing that somewhere in your house, there is a monkey that you are going to battle? That's awesome! You walk in. "AARRGGHHH (monkey noise)." "Monkey? You here? "AARRGGHH." "Where are you?" "ARRGHH, I'm in your closet." "Holy shit, you just talked!" "I know, I taught myself to talk." "This is incredibly odd." "I know, let's fight!" "OK."
This would be the ultimate. What if, after the heist, you jump into the van, and the monkey is driving the van! "Get in! We've got to go!" It makes me sad, cause I know it will never happen.
-Dane Cook
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Lou Breakin' it Down
Lou: One of the things that's going on in this country is that there is an effort from both the left and the right, partisan republican and democrat, to obfuscate the reality. These are people who want you to talk about gay marriage, gun control, abortion, "under god" in the pledge of allegiance, the burning of the flag...
Charlie: ...you think that the politicians are using those issues to distract...
Lou: To distract, to divide, to push a wedge, between the reality that we need to influence and the issues that are on one end abstract and on the other not my business.
"Our political system is dominated by corporate America. The midterm elections that we've just completed cost an estimated 2.6 billion dollars. TWO POINT SIX BILLION DOLLARS, nearly all of that money provided by corporate America."
"Let's leave the Constitutional authority where it rests and that's with the House of Representatives."
"Corporate America now has the largest share of our national income since World War II and our working men and women have the smallest share..."
"...half the (individual) bankruptcies in this country are caused by medical catastrophe... overwhelming medical bills. The 2005 bankruptcy bill was not influenced by corporate America, it was written by credit card companies. We've reached that sad a state."
"Forty years ago, there was something like 68 lobbyists in Washington D.C. Today there are 34 thousand."
--Lou Dobbs
These quotes alone are enough to get someone shot by the crazies in power these days.
The Ken Auleta piece is a prelude. There are some points that I take issue with Lou on, but in terms of mass media, Lou is spittin' knowledge like no one else save for maybe Olberman.
Pay attention to his take on the left, right, liberal/conservative distractions to the REAL issues facing us.
Keep goin' Lou.
Segment 1: Journalist Ken Auletta talks about his recent profile of Lou Dobbs in The New Yorker.
Segment 2: Lou Dobbs, host of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and author of "War on the Middle Class".
Charlie: ...you think that the politicians are using those issues to distract...
Lou: To distract, to divide, to push a wedge, between the reality that we need to influence and the issues that are on one end abstract and on the other not my business.
"Our political system is dominated by corporate America. The midterm elections that we've just completed cost an estimated 2.6 billion dollars. TWO POINT SIX BILLION DOLLARS, nearly all of that money provided by corporate America."
"Let's leave the Constitutional authority where it rests and that's with the House of Representatives."
"Corporate America now has the largest share of our national income since World War II and our working men and women have the smallest share..."
"...half the (individual) bankruptcies in this country are caused by medical catastrophe... overwhelming medical bills. The 2005 bankruptcy bill was not influenced by corporate America, it was written by credit card companies. We've reached that sad a state."
"Forty years ago, there was something like 68 lobbyists in Washington D.C. Today there are 34 thousand."
--Lou Dobbs
These quotes alone are enough to get someone shot by the crazies in power these days.
The Ken Auleta piece is a prelude. There are some points that I take issue with Lou on, but in terms of mass media, Lou is spittin' knowledge like no one else save for maybe Olberman.
Pay attention to his take on the left, right, liberal/conservative distractions to the REAL issues facing us.
Keep goin' Lou.
Segment 1: Journalist Ken Auletta talks about his recent profile of Lou Dobbs in The New Yorker.
Segment 2: Lou Dobbs, host of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and author of "War on the Middle Class".
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