• 1929-1968
• Minister
• 1st president Southern
Christian Leadership Program
• Montgomery Bus Boycott
(1955)
• Birmingham
Campaign/Project C (1963)
• March on Washington (1963)
• Selma (1964)
• Assassinated 1968
Statement by Alabama Clergymen
• “Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred
and violence have no sanction in our religious
and political traditions," we also point out that
such actions as incite to hatred and violence,
however technically peaceful those actions
may be, have not contributed to the
resolution of our local problems.”
– Demonstrations “unwise and untimely”, led by
“outsiders”
• “We further strongly urge our own Negro
community to withdraw support from these
demonstrations, and to unite locally in working
peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights
are consistently denied, a cause should be
pressed in the courts and in negotiations among
local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to
both our white and Negro citizenry to observe
the principles of law and order and common
sense.”
– Law as a weapon
Letter from Birmingham Jail
• “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 GrecoRoman world, so am I compelled to carry the
gospel of freedom beyond my own home
town.”
• “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere.”
• “your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to
express a similar concern for the conditions
that brought about the demonstrations.”
• “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 to so dramatize the issue that it can no
longer be ignored.”
• “We know through painful experience that
freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a
direct-action campaign that was "well timed"
in the view of those who have not suffered
unduly from the disease of segregation. For
years now I have heard the word "Wait!””
• “We have waited for more than 340 years for our
constitutional and God-given rights.... 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....”
• “One may want to 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”
– “To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust
law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and
natural law”
• Sources of authority
• “I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive
religious-education buildings. Over and over I have
found myself asking: "What kind of people worship
here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when
the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of
interposition and nullification? Where were they when
Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and
hatred? Where were their voices of support when
bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to
rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the
bright hills of creative protest?””
“I Have a Dream”
• “Five score years ago, a great American, in
whose symbolic shadow we stand today,
signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”
– Invocation of American political authority
• “America has given the Negro people a bad
check, a check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds."
• But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice
is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are
insufficient funds in the great vaults of
opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to
cash this check, a check that will give us upon
demand the riches of freedom and the security of
justice.”
– Violation of contract
• “And so even though we face the difficulties of
today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
• I have a dream that one day this nation will rise
up and live out the true meaning of its creed:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal.””
– Calling the political community to account before its
own beliefs
• With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of
despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to
transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful
symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work
together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail
together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be
free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's
children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
• And when this happens, when we allow freedom
ring, when we let it ring from every village and
every hamlet, from every state and every city, we
will be able to speed up that day when all of
God's children, black men and white men, Jews
and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be
able to join hands and sing in the words of the
old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!