Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated 52 years ago on April 4th, 1968. As a country, we typically celebrate his life on MLK day in January, and then forget about him for another year. This year, as Good Friday approaches, I would encourage you to take a few minutes and look at another anniversary – King’s jailing in Birmingham on Good Friday in 1963, and his subsequent publishing of “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.

Good Friday in 1963 was on April 12th. On that same day, King was arrested and jailed for an “illegal” parade and marching for civil rights. He was locked up for the next eight days. While there, a friend smuggled in a newspaper from April 12th. In it, was a statement from eight white Alabama clergymen titled “A Call for Unity”. The clergymen agreed racial injustice was real for African Americans, but disagreed with King’s approach and urged solutions should only be pursued through the courts. King obviously disagreed and over the next several days, using what scraps of paper were available, secretly wrote a letter to the newspaper in response. It was eventually published in June of ‘63 in several other publications.

The “Letter” is a profound piece of writing and has many, many ideas and quotes that still ring true today. There are thoughts in it for everyone to consider. Here are just a few of them.

• “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

• “Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue, rather than dialogue”.

• “It is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light, but…. groups tend to be more immoral than individuals”.

• “Moderate whites who….paternalistically believes (they) can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time; who consistently advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season””.

• “…the strangely irrational 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”.

• “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds”.

• “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”.

• “The goal of America is freedom”.

I believe the first time I was presented with “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was my senior year at West Point in a Philosophy Class. In the intervening years, I have reread parts of the letter, but generally, didn’t think about it much.

Lately? Over the past couple of years I’ve become increasingly concerned. Are we as a nation making progress, or becoming more racist? Have some of our current issues always been there, just below the surface? We certainly are seeing more overt actions, such as the violence in Charlottesville a couple of years ago, or the individuals who were hoping to start a “race war” during the Richmond 2nd Amendment rally in January of this year. We also see other troubling activities in many states, including purging of voters from election lists and disproportional closing of polling locations in African American communities. Here in Virginia, environmental racism, and the selection of gas pipeline routes overtly affecting African Americans is taking place. Currently, during the COVID 19 pandemic, there are signs of bias and disparity in access to medical care and testing. These are just a few examples, but if you look around, you can see many more.

This Easter weekend, 57 years after King was incarcerated on Good Friday in 1963, I urge you to read his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, or if you have previously read it, please reread it. You can easily find a copy online (I’ve provided a link below) and it only takes ten or fifteen minutes. It is as fresh and important today, as it was in 1963. King’s message is there for all of us who care about equality in America. My friend Mary and I were discussing this, and she said “As we Christians renew our faith, we should also emulate Jesus by renewing our commitment to justice.” How appropriate and true.

We’ve certainly made progress as a country since 1963. Having said that, we still have a long ways to go. Racial inequality is something that hurts all of us and we need to stay active in our efforts to stop it. As King said, “Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere”.

Happy Easter.

Addendum:

⁃ Thanks to my friend Mary Haak for help with this blog. Mary’s one of those people who do good deeds as a matter of course. Another comment from Mary to me was: “I encourage everyone to read…no, study, MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”  Certainly, the “I Have a Dream” speech was moving and inspiring, but too many people use it as a prop to mischaracterize who MLK was and what he wanted.  You simply can’t read his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in its entirety and continue to misunderstand his purpose. “

⁃ Here’s one online link to “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/letter_birmingham_jail.pdf

⁃ You can also buy a copy on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=letter+from+birmingham+jail+by+martin+luther+king+jr&crid=3V2Y8GN7ME770&sprefix=Letter+from%2Caps%2C293&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_11

⁃ If not familiar with the folks trying to start a race war at the Second Amendment rally in Richmond this year, you can read more here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/us/the-base-suspects-race-war-virginia-gun-rally/index.html

⁃ Looking for info on voter purging or polling place shutdown? There are numerous articles online. Here are some interesting examples. These were provided by the AP, Vox, the ACLU, and others:

• Seventy percent of Georgia voters purged in 2018 were Black.

• Across the country, one in 13 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws.

• Across the country, counties with larger minority populations have fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter. Texas and Georgia are particularly guilty of closing polling locations in minority communities.

⁃ Want to read a bit more about environmental racism here in Virginia? Try this article: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2019/12/05/in-virginia-union-hill-and-racial-tensions-have-put-environmental-justice-back-on-the-map/

⁃ Here’s an NPR story about potential health care bias as we face the current Coronavirus crisis: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/02/825730141/the-coronavirus-doesnt-discriminate-but-u-s-health-care-showing-familiar-biases?fbclid=IwAR3GMb-jW388WCwrE_1FjWC5sFcLhTySFl1Z7dzXp36IZkKdZNKH4acpFhU