16 April 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 statement in what I hope will be
patient and reasonable terms.
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
all 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 Shuttlesworth 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 had 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-withdrawal 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 mayoral 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
off, 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, so
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 Southland been bogged down in a
tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

BE SUCCINCT!

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