Martin Luther King, Jr.: We will reach the goal of freedom because that is America’s goal

Today is Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day, and like we do every year in hon­or of Dr. King’s mem­o­ry, I’m post­ing an excerpt from his Let­ter From Birm­ing­ham Jail.

This year’s selec­tion is a set of pas­sages from the clos­ing para­graphs of the let­ter. Here, Dr. King is giv­ing thanks for those who have nobly and coura­geous­ly tak­en a stand for jus­tice and nondis­crim­i­na­tion — those who have bro­ken loose from the “par­a­lyz­ing chains of con­for­mi­ty.” He then explains that he has no despair about the future, for the goal of the move­ment he is com­mit­ted to is free­dom… the Amer­i­can goal. Our des­tiny, he writes, is tied up with Amer­i­ca’s destiny.

Is orga­nized reli­gion too inex­tri­ca­bly bound to the sta­tus quo to save our nation and the world? Per­haps I must turn my faith to the inner spir­i­tu­al church, the church with­in the church, as the true ekkle­sia and the hope of the world.

But again I am thank­ful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of orga­nized reli­gion have bro­ken loose from the par­a­lyz­ing chains of con­for­mi­ty and joined us as active part­ners in the strug­gle for free­dom. They have left their secure con­gre­ga­tions and walked the streets of Albany, Geor­gia, with us. They have gone down the high­ways of the South on tor­tu­ous rides for freedom.

Yes, they have gone to jail with us.

Some have been dis­missed from their church­es, have lost the sup­port of their bish­ops and fel­low ministers.

But they have act­ed in the faith that right defeat­ed is stronger than evil tri­umphant. Their wit­ness has been the spir­i­tu­al salt that has pre­served the true mean­ing of the gospel in these trou­bled times.

They have carved a tun­nel of hope through the dark moun­tain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the chal­lenge of this deci­sive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of jus­tice, I have no despair about the future.

I have no fear about the out­come of our strug­gle in Birm­ing­ham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood.

We will reach the goal of free­dom in Birm­ing­ham and all over the nation, because the goal of Amer­i­ca is free­dom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our des­tiny is tied up with Amer­i­ca’s destiny.

The Let­ter from Birm­ing­ham Jail, also known by its alter­nate titles (“Let­ter from Birm­ing­ham City Jail” and “The Negro Is Your Broth­er”) was writ­ten April 16th, 1963, while Dr. King was incar­cer­at­ed in Alaba­ma’s third largest city.

King and oth­er civ­il rights lead­ers had been arrest­ed on April 12th for dis­re­gard­ing an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion issued by an Alaba­ma cir­cuit judge on “parad­ing, demon­strat­ing, boy­cotting, tres­pass­ing and picketing.”

The let­ter was a response to an open let­ter authored by eight white cler­gy­man titled “A Call for Uni­ty,” which crit­i­cized King and his methods.

“The let­ter pro­voked King, and he began to write a response to the news­pa­per itself,” the doc­u­men­t’s Wikipedia entry explains. “King writes in Why We Can’t Wait: ‘Begun on the mar­gins of the news­pa­per in which the state­ment appeared while I was in jail, the let­ter was con­tin­ued on scraps of writ­ing paper sup­plied by a friend­ly Black trusty, and con­clud­ed on a pad my attor­neys were even­tu­al­ly per­mit­ted to leave me.’ Wal­ter Reuther, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Auto Work­ers, arranged $160,000 to bail out King and the oth­er jailed protestors.”

We encour­age you today to take some time to read the whole let­ter.

Or, if you’d like, you can watch/listen to a read­ing of it.

Hap­py MLK Day!