In April of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and put in jail in connection with protests of segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Shortly after his incarceration, eight clergymen from Alabama published a statement in the Birmingham newspaper labeling Dr. King as an outside agitator and criticizing his protests as untimely and improper methods for seeking change.

Dr. King saw this statement and wrote his now famous, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The letter is a criticism of waiting for those in control to deliver justice and a defense of “direct action” in the form of nonviolent protests. In describing actual events from the civil rights struggle, his letter strongly illustrates two points I have discussed previously, one from Etienne de la Boetie’s “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” and one from Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.”

After addressing claims he was an “outside agitator,” Dr. King said to his critics:
“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.”

Here we see a graphic illustration of the truth of de la Boetie’s observation that men accept existing conditions as normal and right. There is a strong tendency for people to believe because things are, they are entitled to continue to be, they have a certain moral right to exist, or worse, they have been divinely ordained to be.

For Dr. King’s critics, segregation was not the source of the problem. Instead, it was Dr. King who was the “troublemaker.” Segregation was so ingrained as the background of life it was not even mentioned by his critics and received a free pass. It was Dr. King’s conduct that was out of bounds, not that of the men and women who continue daily to enforce and live in a system of legal segregation that is a moral abomination.

In this mindset, even when large numbers intellectually admit the status quo is “wrong,” because it is still accepted as so normal they feel it is the ones who challenge the way things are who are stirring up trouble; the ones who are in the wrong when they take even peaceful but unorthodox measures outside accepted channels. The victims should just be patient and wait for what they want to happen in its own course over some indefinite length of time so no one (besides the victim, that is) is unduly disturbed!

Waiting

When acceptance of injustice is so engrained people can barely see it, and perhaps not feel it at all, the watchwords are moderation, patience and proper channels. Or perhaps some are afraid being outspoken and “uppity” will just make things worse, so they have the same counsel. But those who suffer the brunt of the injustice cannot be so cavalier; it is their lives being destroyed. Dr. King knew his actions were just, and the status quo was unjust, and so he criticized those who felt no urgency in aiding the suffering of others:

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’” 

“We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging 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 suddenly find yourself 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, ... 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 know 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.”

But whose hearts and minds must be changed in order to change the status quo? Recall that Thoreau claimed it was not the slave owners themselves who were most to blame for the continuation of slavery, but the farmers and merchants in the northeast who simply could not be bothered to divert their attention from business affairs. In similar fashion, Dr. King saves his most passionate denunciation not for the Ku Klux Klan, but for the “anything for a quiet life” white moderates who, realizing the system is wrong, simply cannot be bothered to do anything about it:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

With this background, I believe we now can understand Dr. King’s explanation of the purpose of “direct action”:

“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.”

Direct action, then, is a dramatization that seeks to break men’s perception of the acceptability of what is “normal,” to bring to the light of day the injustice in the status quo, and to demonstrate that it is no longer acceptable. Its purpose is to discomfit and unsettle the “anything for a quiet life” crowd, so that they will finally be moved to negotiate a new peace, if only so they can return to their quiet lives.

Direct action seeks to break the strongest force that enables injustice or tyranny to persist, long ago identified by de la Boetie, and reaffirmed by Thoreau and Dr. King: blind or passive acceptance of the status quo as normal and right. It doesn’t target the oppressors, but the “go along to get along — or to prosper” crowd who enable the oppressors to tyrannize. It targets “the silent majority.”

It is vital to grasp this lesson. The oppressor is not defeated by a direct assault upon the oppressor — or more accurately, the worst offender, but by unseating the source of his power, by depriving him of the acceptance and legitimacy that enables him to wield power.

But why should direct action be non-violent? Wouldn’t violence be even more effective, quicker? Dr. King does not explain why direct action should be non-violent. I will address this in my next column.