“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”
Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
The first night of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis my roommate and I stayed in. I had talked to a few Black friends and heard the call from leaders in the community for white people to leave space for Black mourning in a pandemic that was disproportionately impacting the Black community. We were glued to the livestreams all night and watched in horror as tear gas and flames took over the city.
The next day I checked in with my friends and the call shifted:
“White people, if you’re going to show up, SHOW UP. Don’t leave the second the police show up and leave us Black and Brown bodies fighting alone.”
My roommate and I ran to grab our cardboard and paint before looking at each other with discomfort. What would we write? As much as our hearts burned for justice we didn’t know how to express it, we didn’t know the history of social movements as much as we thought, and we didn’t have the language we needed. The only activist I knew at the time was MLK and all I could remember was “I have a dream” which felt incredibly out of place. Running out of time, I scrawled “Black Lives Matter” and she wrote “George Floyd” and we ran out the door to that days’ march.
I have learned so much from those spaces. I have seen impactful quotes, heard speeches and testimonies, and felt the unifying energy of advocacy. Included in that are the ways I had inaccurately conceptualized Dr. King as well as other civil rights leaders and advocates of his time.
Let us today read his entirety of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” which includes the following:
“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.
“One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”
“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.
“In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?
“Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership… I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church… I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents… In the midst of blatant injustices… I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities… I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
“Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.”
I was taught to admire Dr. King because of his nonviolent and unifying demeanor. I did not even hear the name Malcolm X until I got to late high school – only because a teacher made a sly comment about how he should not have been erased from history – and the Black Panthers when working in a Black-led organization. Now, I am going back to fill in the gaps, learning more about others beyond MLK and the ways my education was white-washed.
Yes, today we remember MLK by celebrating a day close to his birthday. However, how are we engaging daily? He was murdered in many of your lifetimes and the fight for justice we are seeing today is the continuation of that fight. I feel it incredibly hypocritical to speak his praise while condemning protests today, to pull quotes that fit our comfort without challenging our perspectives, and to call out activists today while claiming he was unifying when the cries for justice are nearly identical. Do some more research today in his honor.
