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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
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A newspaper in education supplement TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., April
16, 1963
…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 ne-
gotiation. 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 com-
munity, which has constantly refused to negotiate,
is forced to confront the issue…
We know through painful experience that free-
dom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it
must be demanded by the oppressed…
We have waited for more than 340 years for
our constitutional and God-given rights. …Per-
haps it is easy for those who have never felt the
stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But
when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your
mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters
and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-
filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your
black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast
majority of your twenty million Negro brothers
smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the
midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly
find your tongue twisted and your speech stam-
mering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old
daughter why she can't go to the public amuse-
ment park that has just been advertised on televi-
sion, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she
is told that Funtown is closed to colored children,
and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to
form in her little mental sky…; when you have to
concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is
asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored
Letter From Birmingham Jail
Birmingham, Alabama Campaign of Mass Protests
In April 1963, mass protests began in Birming-
ham, Alabama (often called Bombingham due
to over 50 bombings) by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC). The main support
came from Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth of the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
(ACMHR). Shuttlesworth was also a cofounder of
the SCLC with Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I draw the line in the dust and toss the gaunt-
let before the feet of tyranny…and I say segrega-
tion now…segregation tomorrow…segregation
forever,” spoke Alabama Governor George C. Wal-
lace at his inauguration January 14, 1963. Many
whites in Alabama took comfort in his words.
This was the backdrop for why black lead-
ers felt that a victory in Birmingham would shift
public opinion across America.
Wyatt Tee Walker, executive director of SCLC
explained the plan: “I wrote a document called
Project C—it meant confrontation. My theory was
that if we mounted a strong nonviolent move-
ment, the opposition would surely do something
to attract the media, and in turn induce national
sympathy and attention to the everyday segre-
gated circumstances of a black person in the Deep
South. We targeted Birmingham because it was
the biggest and baddest city of the South. Dr.
King’s feeling was that if nonviolence wouldn’t
work in Birmingham then it wouldn’t work any-
where.”
Surprisingly, Project C was initiated with high
school students. Reverend James Bevel was having
trouble recruiting enough adults for the protest
because they worked and were also afraid of losing
their jobs. It was an economic issue. He came up
with this idea: “…Let’s use thousands of people
who won’t create an economic crisis…high school
students. A boy from high school, he can get the
same effect in terms of being in jail, in terms of
putting pressure on the city…”
Rev. King, in his autobiography, related the
case of a black teenager who decided to march in
the face of his father’s objections:
“Daddy,” the boy said, “I don’t want to disobey you, but I have
made my pledge. If you try to keep me home, I will sneak off. If
you think I deserve to be punished for that, I’ll just have to take the
punishment. For, you see, I’m not doing this only because I want to
be free. I’m doing it also because I want freedom for you and Mama,
and I want it to come before you die.” That father thought again, and
gave his son his blessing.
Alabama governor George C. Wallace
Bill Hudson’s image of Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being
attacked by dogs was published in The New York Times on May 4, 1963.
people so mean?"; …when you are humiliated day in and day out by
nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name
becomes "n----r," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old
you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and
mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; …when you go
forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will
understand why we find it difficult to wait.
Excerpts, full text at:
