Happy to be caught in the traffic this morning! In solidarity. To all those complaining and saying, Its ok to protest, just dont get in anyones way.” Or, “I’m all for a good cause but when people are affected it just seems pointless,” your words are eerily familiar. As we come up on MLK Day, here are some excerpts from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail to consider. “While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities ‘unwise and untimely.’ … 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…It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the citys white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative…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 Negros great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens 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.’… 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 all 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.”
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 18:35:10 +0000
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