It is April 12, 1963.
Dr. Martin Luther King is in the Birmingham, Alabama, jail.
He has been arrested for leading a civil rights march in defiance
of an injunction banning protest activity.
During King’s incarceration, he will write a letter which will be considered
the most important document of the civil rights era.
The letter is addressed to clergymen who have urged patient negotiations
and court actions to alleviate racial segregation rather than protests.
In his response, King notes the oppression and pain
which racial discrimination has brought to millions of Americans.
And he tells the clergymen that they have a responsibility to be
agents for change.
King says he knows that some have labeled him an ‘extremist’
because of his civil rights work,
but King says he now takes pride in the “extremist” label.
‘It puts me in good company,’ he says.
From King’s letter:
But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist.
Was not Jesus an extremist in love? --"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you."
Was not Amos an extremist for justice? --"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? --"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."
Was not Martin Luther an extremist? --"Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God."
Was not John Bunyan an extremist? --"I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a mockery of my conscience."
Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? --"This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist? --"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be.
Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love?
Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?”
Above all, King urges these men to act.
“The most pernicious danger, he says, “is not the manifest actions of those with bad intentions.
It is the apathy and inaction of well-meaning citizens.”
So, here we are.
Democracy is being dismantled.
… time to get off the couch.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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