My Proposed IndyCar Schedule

I’m in the mood to write a couple thousand words about one of my favorite sports, IndyCar racing. This past week, the IndyCar series announced their 2023 schedule, and it got me thinking about what I would like to see change with the schedule. I love the series, but I’ve never understood why their season ends so early every year. This year, for instance, the final race of the season is on September 11, a full two months or more before most American-based motorsports series end.

In addition, I’ve always felt that IndyCar should be more of an international series. One of the reasons for this is that every year, IndyCar features some of the best drivers from around the globe. Last year’s champion is from Spain. The leader in the points at the moment is from Australia. Several other countries are also represented. Years ago, IndyCar boasted races in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Australia, and Japan.

Does that mean IndyCar should go back to those venues? In a perfect world, maybe. But this isn’t a perfect world. Costs are through the roof, and it would be difficult to justify spending an inordinate amount of a team’s budget to go to one race far away from their US home base.

Having said that, IndyCar should have more of a presence in Canada. The pandemic kept the series out of Canada for the past few years, and just a  month or two ago made a return to the streets of Toronto. Even though IndyCar is back, I think an argument can be made that Canada deserves another race or two.

In addition, racing in Mexico is a no-brainer (providing IndyCar can find a willing promoter). Look at the turn out and hype over Formula 1’s annual visit to Mexico. Mexican fans would welcome IndyCar to their country.

Of course, adding races in Canada and Mexico means eliminating races in the United States. Or does it? What if, rather than continuing with a 17-race schedule, we were to expand the schedule to 20, 22, or 24 races?

In putting together my mock schedule, I was as open-minded as possible to the length of the schedule, the number of races, the history of IndyCar (without being overly sentimental), as well as the good and bad of each potential race and venue. My goal was to put together a portfolio of events that was balanced between ovals, street circuits, and permanent road courses.

Let’s start by cutting the fat out of the schedule. There are a few tracks the series races at that I would not return to. Tops on that list is Texas Motor Speedway.

Texas used to be one of my favorite tracks. When at least two lines were available for racing, TMS was one of the most exciting venues on the schedule. But when they added PJ1 sealant to the track surface to increase grip for NASCAR competition, the track was reduced to just one drivable lane for IndyCars. For the past few years, the races have been mostly “follow the leader” races, with an occasional pass thrown in for good measure.

In addition, the races at TMS have not been particularly well promoted. Motorsports journalist Jenna Fryer commented last year that she was in Dallas/Ft. Worth for another event on the IndyCar weekend at TMS, and she did not see any marketing hyping the race. It appears TMS has in effect given up on IndyCar. I think it’s time IndyCar give up on TMS. When the PJ1 disappears from the track, maybe then it will be time to reconsider racing there again.

Portland is another race that should probably go away. The racing is never particularly interesting there (unless you consider a huge pile up in turn 1 interesting), and the event itself is just kind of blah. There doesn’t seem to be much excitement over the race in Portland. Why insist on going back year after year?

One argument to keep Portland is that IndyCar should have a presence in the Pacific Northwest. I agree with that sentiment and will address it in just a bit.

In addition, I would do away with the second visit to the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The series is already missing out at racing at many deserving tracks. It doesn’t make sense to schedule two races each season at the Indy road course. If the series insisted on holding two races there, the least they could do is change up the configuration of the track for one of the races or run a different distance to complicate strategy. As it stands, the current schedule features two identical races, which really doesn’t make sense. For my purposes, I’m going to eliminate the August race at Indy traditionally known as the Harvest Grand Prix.

Of course, by eliminating this race, I’m also eliminating the triple-header with NASCAR. I actually like sharing a weekend with NASCAR, so I’ll try to add that back into my proposed schedule.

So, we’ve eliminated three races from the current schedule, which leaves the following events on the calendar:

  • St. Petersburg Street Circuit
  • Long Beach Street Circuit
  • Barber Motorsports Park
  • Indy Road Course
  • Indianapolis Motor Speedway
  • Detroit Street Circuit
  • Road America
  • Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
  • Toronto Street Circuit
  • Iowa Speedway (Double)
  • Nashville Street Circuit
  • Gateway International Speedway
  • Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca

A couple thoughts about these races: First, I’m not in love with the races at Barber Motor Sports Park or Mid-Ohio. I like them, but I don’t love them. It wouldn’t take a lot to convince me to replace both races on the calendar.

I know some people don’t like the doubleheader at Iowa Speedway. I do. Not only is the racing fast and furious, but having races on back-to-back days is a real challenge for both the driver and teams, which adds to the allure of the weekend. Considering the fantastic job Hy-Vee does to promote the race and stage concerts by big-name acts, I view the doubleheader at Iowa as a huge win for the IndyCar series.

Although I like the doubleheader, I don’t like double points. There’s no debating that the Indy 500 is the crown jewel of the series, but I don’t think winning it should pay double points. Having said that, because of the unique nature of the two weeks surrounding the Indy 500, I do think double points should be on offer. I just don’t think they should all be awarded for the race. I’d like to see qualifying become a points paying event, with as many points on the line as in a normal race. In other words, winning the pole will pay as many points as winning a race.

Let’s talk just a little more about this suggestion. Teams put so much effort into qualifying for the Indy 500. They practice for a week prior to qualifying, then spend an entire weekend competing for the pole. This effort should be rewarded more than it currently is. Because so much effort and expense goes into qualifying, I’d like to see points awarded based on qualifying position in the same way points are awarded for finishing position in the race.

I’d also like to see double points eliminated from the final race of the season. It’s too gimmicky for my taste. It’s nothing more than an attempt to inject some faux suspense into the driver’s championship. The final race should be no more important than any other race on the calendar. Pay the same points in the final race as you do for every other race and let the driver’s performance over the entire course of the season determine the championship.

Okay, we currently have fourteen races on our proposed IndyCar schedule. What tracks should we add?

STREET CIRCUITS

Let’s start by talking about street circuits we could add. I mentioned previously that IndyCar needs more races in Canada as well as in the Pacific Northwest. Let’s add street circuit races in Seattle, WA and in Vancouver, BC.

Seattle would be a terrific opportunity to add an event in a town loaded with high-tech companies. There could be some real synergy there for showcasing IndyCar in a target rich environment for sponsors and potential sponsors. In addition, Seattle is traditionally a town that supports sporting events, so I think they would welcome IndyCar with open arms.

Once upon a time, IndyCar (in its Champ Car iteration) ran on the streets of Vancouver in what was then known as Molson Indy Vancouver. The race took place near BC Place, and was a really popular event, attracting more than 100,000 people over most race weekends. In 1996, the race hosted the largest single-day crowd up to that point in the history of Canada. IndyCar hasn’t been back since 2004, but I think its time for a return.

By adding street circuits in Seattle and Vancouver, the IndyCar calendar will now boast seven street circuits.

ROAD COURSES

Let’s turn our attention to permanent road courses. I already eliminated the oval at Texas Motor Speedway from the schedule, but I don’t want to abandon Texas completely. That’s why I’m adding a race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin. I’ll be honest, COTA isn’t my favorite track, but it is a beautiful facility in a town and state where IndyCar should be on display.

I’d also like to add a race at Watkins Glen. It’s a terrific track for IndyCar racing and it has been off the schedule for too long. Watkins Glen is one of the most historic road courses in the country and deserves a place on the calendar.

Adding Watkins Glen could also be an opportunity to move the IndyCar/NASCAR tripleheader. NASCAR already races at Watkins Glen. Maybe the event could be made even bigger by adding IndyCar to the weekend.

Next, let’s add Road Atlanta. This permanent road course is fast, challenging, and exciting. The track might have to make some safety changes, especially in the area around the esses, but they shouldn’t be too hard or expensive to do. If you’ve ever seen a race at Road Atlanta, you can only imagine how fun it would be to watch IndyCar on the track.

I mentioned previously that I didn’t love the race at Barber Motorsports Park. It’s possible that a race at Road Atlanta could replace a race at Barber. I have heard that the agreement with Barber is that IndyCar is prohibited from holding races in Georgia or Tennessee. If that is the case, I’d say “so long” to Barber and move the race to Road Atlanta, a more interesting track that would provide better racing, in a more desirable (for the series) location.

The final road course addition to the calendar isn’t a road course at all. It is a temporary circuit, but not a street circuit. So, what is it? It is Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland. IndyCar ran the Grand Prix of Cleveland at Burke Lakefront for twenty-five years. They were last there in 2007. The Cleveland race was popular with drivers and fans alike (although drivers did complain about the bumpiness).

Cleveland is a very hot market right now and IndyCar should take advantage of it. Some people might complain that Cleveland is too close to Mid-Ohio and keeping both races could water down attendance at both events. I’m not sure that is true. I think the schedule can be organized so neither event impacts the other. If it is true, maybe it’s time to give Mid-Ohio a rest and give Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland a try.

There is one track I didn’t add to the schedule that could potentially be a terrific track for an IndyCar/NASCAR tripleheader weekend. That track is the Charlotte Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I think the location would be awesome, introducing IndyCar to the diehard NASCAR fans in the Charlotte area. The thing I’m not sure about is how well IndyCars would race on the Roval. Josef Newgarden did a few demonstration laps in an IndyCar a few years ago on the Roval and says he thinks IndyCar would put on a great race there. A little more investigation is needed, but the Charlotte Roval could be a welcome addition to the IndyCar calendar.

OVALS

That brings us to ovals. One of the complaints I hear most is that IndyCar doesn’t have enough ovals on the calendar. When you think about what sets IndyCar apart from other open wheel series (particularly F1), it’s the challenge of racing on ovals, as well as street and road circuits.

There are three ovals I’d like to see added to the IndyCar calendar. First, is Richmond International Raceway. IndyCar ran there from 2001-2009. Since leaving, there has been a pretty steady drumbeat of oval fans pushing to get IndyCar back to Richmond. This would be a good chance to run on a short oval under the lights on a Saturday night. I like that idea.

The next oval addition is Homestead-Miami Speedway. IndyCar has a long history of racing in the Miami Grand Prix. Open wheel cars raced in Miami dating back to 1926. IndyCar came to Homestead in 1996 and continued racing there until 2010, including running a doubleheader with IMSA for a few years.

Miami is a terrific market for IndyCar and it would be good to see them get back there. Homestead used to be home to official IndyCar spring training. The 1.5 mile oval provides fast, close, exciting racing. What more could you want?

The final oval on my proposed schedule is the Milwaukee Mile. This one-day event was once one of the most popular on the IndyCar calendar. The races in Milwaukee were among the favorites of drivers and fans alike. The one-mile track is said to run a bit like a road course, with lots of speed and plenty of overtaking opportunities.

This is what the entire schedule would look like:

  • St. Petersburg Street Circuit
  • Long Beach Street Circuit
  • Barber Motorsports Park
  • Indy Road Course
  • Indianapolis Motor Speedway
  • Detroit Street Circuit
  • Road America
  • Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
  • Toronto Street Circuit
  • Iowa Speedway (Double)
  • Nashville Street Circuit
  • Gateway International Speedway
  • Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca
  • Seattle Street Circuit
  • Vancouver Street Circuit
  • Circuit of the Americas
  • Watkins Glen
  • Road Atlanta
  • Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport
  • Richmond International Speedway
  • Homestead-Miami Speedway
  • Milwaukee Mile

*Dates to be determined

That’s a total of 24 points paying events (including Indy 500 qualifying and Iowa Speedway doubleheader). To accommodate all of these events, IndyCar will have to extend their season from late February/early March into October or November. I’d like to see an eight-month season and a four-month off season. I think this breakdown is good for both the series and the fans.

One final thought. I started off by saying IndyCar should run in Mexico, then I didn’t add a race in Mexico. Although I like the idea of taking IndyCar south of the border, it doesn’t seem realistic at the moment. I tried to be as realistic as possible when putting the schedule together. All of the tracks I listed could realistically host an IndyCar event next year. But at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be a realistic promoter and/or venue for an IndyCar race in Mexico. If that changes, I’m all for adding Mexico to the calendar.

There it is. IndyCar, if you’re reading this, feel free to reach out. I have a lot more ideas to improve the series. Just ask.

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The Lament of a Life-Long Cubs Fan

The other night, the Cubs were on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN playing the Giants. I was looking forward to watching the game because earlier this year, I gave up my MLB.TV subscription and had not seen many Cubs games. But when game time approached, I decided not to watch the game. I just couldn’t do it. Watching the Cubs this year has been too depressing, and I wasn’t in the mood to be depressed again. As it turned out, the Cubs lost the game 4-0 and, from reports I read after the game, they played just as badly as I feared.

I’m a life-long Cubs fan, and for most of my fandom, the Cubs have been pretty bad. When Tom Ricketts and the Ricketts family purchased the Cubs prior to the 2009 season, I had hope that they would improve the team, turning them into a perennial winner. Ricketts brought in Theo Epstein—the man who built the Boston Red Sox into a World Series winner—to lead the team’s efforts. Like a lot of fans, my hopes were high.

Sadly, the first thing Epstein and the Cubs did was dismantle the team. They said the teardown was necessary to rebuild the organization the right way, including improving the farm system, and setting the club up to be a consistent post-season threat.

Over the next six years, the Cubs were horrible. They had losing seasons in five of those years, building an overall 429-542 record, winning just 44% of their games.

It was tough to be a fan of the team during those years, but our patience was rewarded in 2015 when the team did unexpectedly well in the playoffs, eventually losing to the Mets in the NLCS. Our hopes were high. Then in 2016, the unimaginable happened. The Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years. It seemed that all of our sacrifice and heartache had been worth it, not only because the Cubs had won the World Series (although that was huge), but because the team was set up to compete for championships for years to come. Or, at least, that’s what we thought.

As it turned out, the Cubs never did make it back to the World Series. Over the next five years they got progressively worse, ultimately selling off their best players at the 2021 trade deadline and promising another rebuild.

Of course, Epstein is gone, and Jed Hoyer, Epstein’s former second-in-command, is running the team now. In his time at the helm, Hoyer has shown no indication that he has a plan or a timeline to get back to being competitive. Now, during the 2022 season, the Cubs are 41-60 (as of 8/2/22), 15 ½ games out of first place in the NL Central, and 13 ½ games out of the newly expanded Wild Card.

From where I’m sitting, the Ricketts/Epstein/Hoyer era with the Cubs has been an abject failure. I say this despite the 2016 World Series victory. After 108 years of futility, winning the World Series was huge, but it wasn’t the primary goal. Epstein & Company were supposed to be building a perennial winner, not a one-time winner.

Fans endured six years of horrible baseball between 2009-2014 with the understanding that, once the rebuild was finished, we could expect a Cubs team that would compete for championships for years to come. That didn’t happen. Today, as I write this, the Cubs are far out of contention, suffering through their second consecutive losing season, they are selling off their players once again at the trade deadline, and they have the 18th-ranked farm system, with just two players in the top 100 in the league. By any measure, that is not a success.

In talking to people about my feelings, a few times I have heard that it is unrealistic to expect the Cubs (or any team) to be good every year. They point to the good years the Cubs had around their World Series championship.

Since the Ricketts took over the team, the Cubs have had seven winning seasons and six losing seasons. During that same period, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cubs biggest rival, has had thirteen consecutive winnings seasons, including two trips to the World Series and a World Series championship. The Cardinals are perennial winners. The Cubs are not.

In addition, the Cardinals have continued to build their team, bringing in Paul Goldschmidt in 2019, Nolan Arenado in 2021, and as I write this, they are in the hunt to land Juan Soto from the Nationals. Even if they don’t trade for him, it’s clear they are building their team for the future. They didn’t take a break and endure several losing seasons in order to have a few winning seasons. In other words, what the Cubs did was not just unnecessary, but in hindsight, was counterproductive.

Another way to look at the Cubs vs the Cardinals is at their market size and payroll commitments. The Cubs play in Chicago, the nation’s third largest market. By contrast, the Cardinals are in the nation’s 23rd largest market. And, although the Cubs have spent more on player payroll than the Cardinals during the Ricketts era, the difference isn’t as much as you might think. Between 2009 and 2021, on average, the Cubs spent less that $15 million more per year than the Cardinals.

You’d be correct if you pointed out that the Cardinals are now, and have been for some time, one of MLB’s most successful franchises. You might say that it is unfair to compare the Cubs to the Cardinals. I don’t agree that it is unfair. There’s no reason the Cubs, in one of the largest markets in the country and having one of the most rabid fan bases in MLB, can’t and shouldn’t be one of the league’s most successful franchises. Even so, if you think the comparison is unfair, let’s instead compare the Cubs to another NL Central rival, the Milwaukee Brewers.

Since 2009, the Brewers have the same number of winning seasons as the Cubs (7) but have actually won more games. The Cubs have an overall record between 2009-2021 of 1005-998 (.502), while the Brewers have a record of 1028-997 (.513)

The Brewers have accomplished this while playing in the 37th largest market in the country (the smallest in MLB) and spending an average of about $45 million less on player payroll than the Cubs. And as the Cubs tank the 2022 season, selling off every player they can, the Brewers are leading the NL Central and adding players at the trade deadline.

All of this is to say that, as much as I love baseball, I’m really questioning my fandom. My favorite team doesn’t seem willing or capable of building a consistent winner. And watching them trot out a AAAA team day after day to play mediocre (at best) baseball just isn’t very fun.

Rumor has it that the Cubs are going to be big spenders in the upcoming off-season, supposedly being in the running for big name free agents like Trea Turner and Carlos Correa. I hope that’s true, but to be honest, I don’t have any confidence in the current regime to either spend money intelligently or build a team around one or two big names.

I’ve been a fan of the Cubs all my life, but I have to say, I feel like I’ve been taken for granted. I know a lot of other fans feel the same way. The team seems to consistently be on the verge of doing something big, but with one exception, never delivers on their promise. The current re-build seems to be just another empty promise made by an organization that makes lots of money off of it’s fans, but can never seem to build the consistent winner they lure us in with.

Maybe it would be more fun to watch the Cardinals or Brewers.

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The Barn Where It Happened

It isn’t much to look at. It’s not ugly, but there’s nothing beautiful about it either. It’s just an old barn. Gray, weathered boards cover the exterior, along with a few mismatched sheets of unpainted brown plywood here and there covering holes in the walls. The roof is covered with gray corrugated steel, the edges rusty and worn.

Big sliding barn doors, the same color as the plywood patches, cover the entrance. The bottom of the doors are rotting away, delaminating. The doors still do their job, but they don’t look as good as they once did.

The barn is unremarkable on its own,  but it’s part of a larger scene. Deciduous trees grow next to the barn, and a sloping, manicured lawn surrounds it, along with a winding dirt path. The sky above is azure blue, punctuated by fluffy, white clouds. The barn is the centerpiece of a serene, pastoral scene. It’s peaceful, comforting, relaxing.

But if those gray, weathered walls could talk, they wouldn’t talk about anything serene or peaceful. They’d speak of evil, of hatred, of violence. They’d tell a story that happened nearly seventy years ago, and which still haunts the barn, the community, the state, and our nation.

***

In 1955, Emmitt Till was on the cusp of becoming a man. At 14-years-old, he wasn’t a man yet. He was still a boy. But as with all boys of a certain age, things were changing. His voice was changing, his body was changing, his thoughts and ideas were changing. He was taking his first steps toward manhood.

During that summer, Emmitt was visiting family in Mississippi. He traveled with his mother, who tried to prepare him for the visit. She told him that Mississippi was not like Chicago, where Till and his mother lived. She told him that he had to show respect to his elders, especially white elders, calling them “sir” and “ma’am.” She told him not to look white woman in the eye. He needed to be respectful, quiet, invisible.

Emmitt was staying with his great-uncle, Mose Wright, at his home on Dark Fear Road near Money, Mississippi. Mose’s youngest son, Simeon, and another cousin, Wheeler Parker, took Emmitt along with them to Bryant’s Grocery, a small convenience store on a rural road near Money. The boys were looking around the store when Emmitt spotted 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant.  He whistled at her. There have been stories written claiming he never whistled, but the truth is, he did. Simeon and Wheeler confirmed it.

A black boy whistling at a white woman in 1950s Mississippi was a foolhardy, dangerous act, but Emmitt didn’t immediately understand what he had done. Simeon and Wheeler, they knew. They were both older and used to the mores of life in Mississippi, and they knew that Emmitt’s action was going to cause them trouble.

***

Simeon thought about telling his father what had happened at Bryant’s Grocery–how Emmitt had broken one of the many unwritten rules that existed in Jim Crow America. Maybe they could sneak Emmitt out of town until his crime was forgotten. Maybe they could hide him from what Simeon feared would be a quick and severe punishment from the white people in town. Simeon decided not to say anything. It was a decision he regretted  later that evening, and for the rest of his life.

Emmitt was fast asleep when two white men walked into his darkened room. The men, Roy Bryant, the husband of the woman Emmitt whistled at, and J.W. Milam, who held a flashlight and a pistol, woke Emmitt, demanding he come outside with them. Emmitt was groggy, asking the men if he could put on his socks. The men became agitated, demanding Emmitt move. Moses’ wife, Emmitt’s great-aunt, begged the men not to take her nephew, but their minds were made up. They weren’t leaving the house without Emmitt.

Outside, the night was still, the buzzing of insects filling the pockets of silence. Mose followed the men as they dragged Emmitt out of the house. He heard a woman’s voice tell them that, yes, they had gotten the right man.  Mose saw them force his nephew into the back of a pickup truck, then pull away, driving down Dark Fear Road until they disappeared into the Mississippi night.

***

Leslie Milam, the brother of J.W. Milam, lived in an old farmhouse on a plantation owned by Ben Sturdivant. The house was run down and in need of new paint. A barn, used to store cotton and farm equipment, stood behind the house on the top of a small rise. The barn was worn and weather-beaten, with faded gray walls and a metal roof, it’s edges rusted from years exposed to the elements. Two large, sliding doors stood open, revealing the interior of the barn.

The Milam brothers, Bryant, and a couple other white men—no one is exactly sure how many—pulled Emmitt from the bed of the truck and dragged him into the barn behind the farmhouse. Wille Reed, an 18-year old black man saw this happen. He stayed out of sight near the road and listened to Emmitt screaming for the men to stop beating him. At one point, Reed saw J.W. exit the barn to get a drink of water, a pistol holstered on his hip. J.W. rested for a moment, then returned to the barn. When he did, Emmitt’s screams turned to moans, then to silence.

J.W., Roy, and the others talked about taking Emmitt to the hospital, but all agreed that he was beyond saving. Their beating had gone too far. One of the men—presumably J.W.—shot Emmitt in the head, ending his misery. They spread cotton seeds on the barn floor to soak up the blood.

The men then loaded Emmitt’s lifeless body into the pickup truck and drove to a bridge over the Tallahatchie River. There, they tied a cotton gin fan around his neck and tossed him into the murky water below.

***

Willie Reed told his grandfather what he had seen at the Milam barn, and his grandfather begged him not to talk about it with anyone, especially not the police. Willie thought it over. He struggled with his decision. In the end, he chose to talk.

J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were tried for the murder of Emmitt Till. Willie, Mose, and others testified about what had happened to Emmitt. It didn’t matter. Milam and Bryant were both acquitted by an all-white jury.

After the trial, Willie ran for his life, having to escape the area to avoid a mob that was searching for any witnesses. He made his way to Memphis where he met up with Detroit Congressman Charlie Diggs, who flew with Willie to Chicago. It was Willie’s first time on an airplane.

Willie started a new life in Chicago,. He changed his name to Willie Louis and met a young nurse named Juliet. They married and bought a home in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. He avoided visits to his old home and didn’t talk about what he had seen that night. Willie and Juliet were together for more than twenty years before she first learned about his old name and his connection to Emmitt Till. Willie died near his Chicago home in 2013.

After the trial, Life Magazine paid J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant to give a full confession they could print for their readers. The two men obliged. It was a mistake. They became ostracized in the community, not so much for the murder, but for bragging about it in a magazine. People in the community felt the paid-for confession brought disrepute on them and their fellow Mississippians. By bragging, Milam and Bryant had made them look bad.

Carolyn Bryant testified at the murder trial of her husband and JW Milam that Emmitt not only whistled at her, but grabbed her and made a lewd comment. That was almost certainly a lie. Emmitt’s cousins, Simeon and Wheeler, said Emmitt only whistled. Nothing else.

Carolyn and Roy Bryant remained married until their divorce in 1979. Carolyn is still alive today, living in a senior living center in Raleigh, NC. Last month, a team investigating the Emmitt Till murder discovered a warrant for Carolyn Bryant’s arrest. In 1955, the Laflore County, MS Sheriff indicated that he would not serve the warrant because Carolyn had two children at home and he didn’t want to bother her. After that, the warrant was forgotten until it was rediscovered last month. Some groups have called for the warrant to be served and for Carolyn Bryant to be tried for her role in Emmitt Till’s murder, but it is unlikely that a prosecutor would agree to move forward with charges against the 88-year old Bryant so long after the murder.

Carolyn’s husband, Roy Bryant, ended up closing his store. Since most of his customers were black, business had slacked off after the murder. He spent the rest of his life broke, moving from one run-down rental to another, shunned by his neighbors and former friends. He died on September 1, 1994.

J.W. Milam lived out his days in a poor black neighborhood. It was the only place he could afford to live. He spent his life skirting the law, committing assault, writing bad checks, using stolen credit cards, and committing other petty crimes. He died on December 31, 1980.

Three months after the murder of Emmitt Till, Ben Sturdivant evicted Leslie Milam and his wife from the old farmhouse and fired him from his job on the plantation. Ben’s grandson, Walker Sturdivant, who still lives in the area, said that his grandfather didn’t approve of what happened in the barn and didn’t want any part of it.

Nineteen years later, Frances Milam, Leslie’s wife, called a Baptist preacher named Macklyn Hubbard, and asked him to visit their home. Leslie was sick and wanted to confess the role he played in the Emmitt Till murder. Hubbard listened as Milam unburdened himself. “He was releasing himself of guilt,” Hubbard later said. “He was belching out guilt.” After giving his confession, Leslie Milam fell asleep and died.

Years later, the Milam home was bulldozed and replaced with a nicer, newer home. There’s even a built-in pool. Off in the backyard, on a slight rise, stands the barn, with its gray, weathered exterior, metal roof, and a story to tell. It’s a tough, emotional story about evil, and hate, and violence. It’s a story that reminds us of who we once were as a country. It reminds us of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. Even though it’s hard to hear, it’s a story we should listen to. It’s a story we should never forget.

ADDENDUM: Carolyn Bryant, the woman Emmitt Till whistled at, remarried later in life and changed her name to Carolyn Donham. She moved to North Carolina and then Louisiana, where she died in 2023, at the age of 88. She was never arrested or otherwise held accountable for the role she played in the murder of Emmitt Till.

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Poetry As Song: Yesterday, When I Was Young

YESTERDAY, WHEN I WAS YOUNG

Yesterday, when I was young
The taste of life was sweet
Like rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if
It were a foolish game
The way an evening breeze
Would tease a candle flame

The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned
I always built to last
On weak and shifting sand.
I lived by night and shunned
The naked light of day
And only now I see
How the years have ran away

Yesterday, when I was young
There were so many songs
That waited to be sung
So many wild pleasures
That lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled
Eyes refused to see

I ran so fast that time
And youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think
What life was all about
And every conversation
That I can recall
Concerns itself with me
And nothing else at all

Yesterday, the moon was blue
And every crazy day
Brought something new to do
And I used my magic age
As if it were a wand
And never saw the waste
And emptiness beyond

The game of love I played
With arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit
So quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed
Somehow to drift away
And only I am left
On stage to end the play

Yesterday, when I was young
There were so many songs
That waited to be sung
So many wild pleasures
That lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled
Eyes refused to see

There are so many songs
In me that won’t be sung
I feel the bitter taste
Of tears upon my tongue
And the time has come for me
To pay for yesterday
When I was young.

–Herbert Kretzmer & Charles Aznavour

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Be Like Claire

Want to be a better person?

Want to live a better, more fulfilling life?

Follow this two step process:

  1. Watch this video about Claire Wineland
  2. Be more like Claire

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Better Late Than Never

Later this week, I’ll be traveling to Macomb, IL to finish something I started in 1984.

Way back then in the dark ages of the 1980’s, I was a 24-year old pup, still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. At the time, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I had just finished my first year at John Marshall Law School in Chicago. I loved law school, but I knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t avoid all of the distractions the city of Chicago had to offer. I was there to attend school and study. The Second City had so many other options.

In law school, I was a C student. I loved what I was studying, but I didn’t spend nearly enough time studying it. I thought about transferring to a law school in a smaller city that offered more sanctuary from the real world. What I found was that most law schools had enough C students of their own. They weren’t interested in transferring in other schools’  C students.

I decided my best course of action was to return to Western Illinois University, where I got my undergraduate degree, and earn a master’s degree in political science. The plan called for me to earn good grades and to eventually get into a better law school, preferably in the south.

The plan worked, kind of. I got accepted into a couple of different law schools, but before I could go, I realized that I couldn’t afford to stay in school any longer. I was broke. It was time to leave school behind (at least for a while) and join the real world.

During fall semester 1985, I took the last of my graduate classes and worked on my thesis. School was coming to an end, and I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I met with a recruiter for the Air Force and made the commitment that, if I did not get a job by the end of 1985, I was going to join the military. I was scheduled to take the test to get into Officer Candidate School on January 4, 1986.

My friend Brett was living in St. Louis at the time and was working for State Farm Insurance. He told me they had job openings in their auto insurance claims department, and he encouraged me to apply. I knew nothing about insurance. I really wasn’t interested in working for an insurance company. But I also didn’t want to join the military. So, on December 30, 1985—just two days shy of my self-imposed deadline—I interviewed for a job at State Farm.

In one day, I interviewed with four different people (in four separate interviews), and to my surprise, I was offered a job that same day. I was saved from going into the military (something I now kind of regret), and I was going to work for an insurance company.

Back in Macomb, I turned in my thesis, thinking I would leave for my new job in St. Louis with a master’s degree. The subject matter for the thesis had been approved by the chair of the Political Science Department, but when I turned in the paper, a new chairman had taken over. He did not approve my subject matter and said I’d have to write a new thesis. (In his defense, my thesis subject was more related to criminal justice than political science.)

I didn’t know what to do. All of my hard work had gone to waste, and I was preparing to leave school. The new department chairman told me not to worry. I had seven years to complete the thesis and still earn the degree. That sounded good. I could move to St. Louis, settle into my new job, and then begin work on my new thesis.

That never happened. Once I was away from Macomb and my new job took up most of my time, I largely forgot about the thesis. Years went by, and the only time I thought about the thesis was when my mom would chastise me for spending all the time, energy, and money on graduate school without having anything to show for it (Thanks a lot, Mom.)

Seven years went by in the blink of an eye. Time had run out and I didn’t complete my thesis. I wasn’t concerned. I had moved on. My career was taking off. I had married and started a family. Not completing my master’s degree didn’t bother me much. Of course, that’s not to say it didn’t bother me at all.

In August of last year, not completing graduate school began bothering me more than usual. I didn’t like that I had spent all of that time and money just to walk away without a degree. I thought about returning to school. I had a lot of questions. So, I contacted the Political Science Department at WIU, explained the situation, and asked if it was still possible to complete the master’s degree. As it turned out, it was. In fact, the person I spoke to seemed kind of excited to help me get through the program.

Since last August, I have been working on re-certifying my classes (writing papers to show that my knowledge is up-to-date on the subject matter of each class I took in 1984-85) and researching and writing a thesis (I made sure the subject matter was approved by everyone). Later this week, I’m meeting with three professors from WIU to defend my thesis.

It’s not supposed to take thirty-seven years to complete a master’s degree, but that’s just how it worked out. I’m excited to defend my thesis and excited to earn my master’s degree (assuming the defense goes well). And maybe, just maybe, the voice of my mom that has played over and over again in my head will be quieted. I think she’d be proud.

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The Bixby Letter

THE STORY

In September 1864, as the Civil War raged, a widow named Lydia Parker Bixby approached Massachusetts Adjunct General William Schouler and informed him that five of her sons, all serving in the Union Army, had been killed. Schouler was touched by the loss suffered by the widow, and asked Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew to notify the President of Mrs. Bixby’s story and requested that the President send a letter of condolence to her.

Governor Andrew relayed the request to Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War. The Secretary asked Andrew to provide him with the names of Bixby’s sons and the units in which they served. Schouler retrieved the information from Mrs. Bixby and sent it to Secretary Stanton, who then passed the request on to the President.

In addition to requesting the letter, Schouler made an appeal for contributions for the families of soldiers at Thanksgiving. The appeal was published in both the Boston Evening Traveller and the Boston Evening Transcript, and it included information about Mrs. Bixby and the five sons she had lost in the war. A portion of the proceeds from the appeal were delivered to Mrs. Bixby on Thanksgiving Day. The following day, she received the letter of condolence from the President.

A copy of Lincoln’s letter was published in the Boston Evening Transcript. Lincoln’s sincere condolences struck a chord with readers of the letter, and it served to increase his popularity and strengthen the war effort among the people of Boston, and throughout Massachusetts.

THE TRUTH

It’s true that Lydia Parker Bixby spoke to Adjunct General Schouler. What was said between the two is a matter of controversy. Schouler was clear that Bixby claimed her five sons had been killed in the war. Some time later, after receiving the President’s letter, Bixby claimed she never told Schouler five of her sons had died in the war. The truth was, Bixby had lost two sons, not five.

Of the five Bixby sons that served during the war:

  • Sargent Charles N. Bixby was killed in action near Fredricksburg, Virginia on May 3, 1863,
  • Private Oliver Cromwell Bixby was killed in action on July 30, 1864 near Petersburg, Virginia,
  • Private Arthur Edward Bixby deserted his post at Fort Richardson, Virginia on May 28, 1862. He hid out until after the war, then returned to Boston,
  • Private George Way Bixby was captured at Petersburg on July 30, 1864 and was held as a POW at Salisbury Prison in North Carolina. Reports differ as to what happened to him after his confinement. One report indicates that he died while in custody at Salisbury. Another indicates he joined Confederate forces and re-joined the fight.
  • Corporal Henry Cromwell Bixby was captured by Confederate troops at Gettysburg and was sent to Richmond, Virginia. He was released on March 7, 1864 and subsequently received an honorable discharge.

Astonishingly, the War Department had records for all five Bixby boys, but ignored them, instead relying on Mrs. Bixby’s claims.

The letter from the President that received so much praise throughout Massachusetts seemed not to impress the widow Bixby. In fact, Elizabeth Towers, a granddaughter of Mrs. Bixby, reported that her grandmother was a southern sympathizer who was indignant over the letter. She claimed that Mrs. Bixby had “little good to say about President Lincoln.” It was reported that Mrs. Bixby destroyed the letter after reading it.

The copy of the letter that was given to the Boston Evening Transcript was also destroyed by the newspaper’s editor after it was printed in the paper. Since then, several people have claimed they have copies of the original letter, but the claims have always proved to be forgeries.

Along with the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address, the Bixby Letter is considered one of Lincoln’s finest written works. It has been quoted in memorials, included on epitaphs, and was even used in the popular film, Saving Private Ryan.

However, many scholars believe that the letter was not written by Lincoln. They instead attribute the letter’s authorship to John Hay, Lincoln’s assistant private secretary.

Lincoln was incredibly busy during the last few months of 1864, executing the war and trying to keep his cabinet together. It’s very possible that he delegated the task of writing the letter to Hay. However, there is no definitive evidence to support the contention that Hay was the author.

THE LETTER

Here is the letter of condolence that President Lincoln sent to the widow Bixby:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,–

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

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A True Abomination

A conservative Christian friend recently wrote a Facebook post saying how much she enjoyed and appreciated the book Single Gay Christian: A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity by Gregory Coles. In the book, Coles describes his life growing up as a Christian, but never being attracted to girls. When he hits puberty, he realizes that he is attracted exclusively to other guys. He loves Jesus with all his heart, but he is sexually attracted to boys.

As Coles’ story unfolds, he explains how he came to the conclusion that he was not a mistake. God created him just the way he was. Even so, in order to live by God’s word, he has to forego any gay relationships. He can’t be in a loving relationship with another man, and, to remain true to his Christian beliefs, he must remain chaste.

My friend said Coles’ story opened her eyes to the struggles LGBTQ Christians live with and the book made her appreciate how much faith and “love for the Lord”  it took for Coles to make the decision to deny his earthly urges in exchange for eternal life in Heaven.

As someone who is not a conservative Christian, I initially felt good about my friend’s admission that she had gone from believing a person couldn’t be both a LGBTQ and a Christian, to understanding that even LGBTQ people can be part of the Christian family, provided they live a life worthy of God. It was a small step, but at least it was in the right direction.

My good feelings quickly disappeared when I began reading the comments to my friend’s post. One person wrote:

“Could you show me in the Bible where it is ok to live this way and be a Christian? The Bible says it is an abomination. People who are unbelievers love, but their eternal destiny is also hell without Jesus. I can give you all the verses in the Bible that say what the end result is. Love is telling people the truth about what God’s Word says! No one likes to hear the truth because it is hard to swallow. But when you show them, and they sincerely want truth, the Holy Spirit will convict them. It is our job to speak the hard truths in love. The greatest love we can show-is by telling sinners to repent and OBEY GOD!. Especially if they profess to believe in Jesus! It is a matter of life and death! 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Romans 1:18-32, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, 2 Peter 2:1, Jude 7, Revelation 21:27, Ephesians 4:9-16, 2 Peter 2, 2 Peter 3:14-18”

Another person wrote:

“Agreed. And as this review by Denny [B]urk states, there are some significant theological issues with [C]oles conclusions on quite a few things, first and foremost, the celebate gay identify genre…Haven’t read the book but have seen enough of the same kind of talks and even some debates with those who advocate the same perspective and even though they try to support their case, the identity genre and resultant mindset that is presented cannot be aligned or supported at all with the clear reading of scripture. And that was the emphasis of Burks review. I just would encourage you to not be so taken by the emotion of the struggle and conclusion presented in the book. It might be compelling, but we also need to be making [sure] it can be supported by scripture. That’s what Burk and others are trying to convey.”

As I read these comments–which to me, are filled with hate disguised as Christian love–I was reminded of the letter that circulated several years ago to Dr. Laura Schlessinger. If you’re not familiar, Dr. Laura was a conservative Christian talk show host who often railed at the depravity and sinfulness of a LGBTQ lifestyle.

Here’s the letter:

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

————————————————-

Christians like my friend and those in her comments tend to be very selective in the Bible passages they choose to follow and those they don’t. To me, that’s the real abomination. They judge people harshly for what they see as a violation of one of God’s laws (homosexuality), but they fail to hold others, including themselves, to God’s other laws. Seems a bit hypocritical, doesn’t it?

As long as we’re recommending Bible verses, let me recommend Matthew 7:1-3 (NKJV) to my friend and those that commented on her post:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”

I’m not nearly the Christian my friends are, but I do recall Jesus commanding us to love one another, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and house the poor. I think I’ll stick with that.

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How to Respond to Bad Faith Accusations

Politics in the United States has gone completely off the rails. In fact, if you were alive in 1980 (or even 1990) and you were magically transported to 2022 to hear a political debate, you’d likely think that people went crazy in the intervening years. To hear politicians making wild claims about voting machines controlled by a dead Venezuelan president or Jewish space lasers that start forest fires or calling a murderous Russian dictator “smart” and “genius” would convince you that something in politics had gone horribly wrong.

One example of this craziness is the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that was passed into law in Florida. In essence, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill prohibits “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation and gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade and in a manner that isn’t “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” in all grades, K–12. In addition, the law creates a cause of action that allows parents to sue school districts if they feel the new law has been violated.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Republican colleagues defend the law, claiming it is inappropriate for public school teachers to discuss sexual orientation or behavior with young students. They especially oppose any effort by public school teachers to tell their young students that “they can be anything they want to be” from a sexual orientation perspective.

Opponents of the law say that it is an attempt to erase LBGTQ students and deny them support services schools currently provide. They also say that it is an effort to damage public schools and instead drive parents toward private, religious-based schools.

Other states have followed in Florida’s footsteps. More than a dozen other states have proposed similar laws to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. One of those states is Michigan, where the legislature is also pushing a bill to prohibit “Critical Race Theory,” which they define as any discussion of race or how race impacted history.

State Senator Lana Theis, a supporter of both bills, called fellow State Senator, Mallory McMorrow, an opponent of the bills, a “groomer” for pedophiles. She also claimed that talk of race in public schools works to hurt white students and make them feel guilty.

Whether you support or oppose this type of law (this really applies to any law), it is beyond the pale to ascribe such vulgar, evil intent to a political opponent. Not everyone agrees on policy. That’s nothing new. But to launch such a bad faith attack on a fellow senator goes beyond acceptable political discourse. Making such hateful, ugly charges not only helps to normalize such charges, but it can, and has, led to threats of violence. It should have no place it our body politic and it should be called out whenever and wherever it happens.

That’s why I am so pleased to see how Senator McMorrow responded to her colleague’s ugly, hateful, bad faith contentions. She pushed back, not only on Theis’ charge of being a “groomer,” but also the implied claim Theis made that she and her ilk had cornered the market on Christianity, patriotism, and love for our children.

Here’s what she had to say on the floor of the Michigan State Senate:

“Senator Lana Theis accused me by name of grooming and sexualizing children in an attempt to marginalize me for standing up against her marginalizing the LGBTQ community…in a fundraising email, for herself. Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won’t.

“I sat on it for a while wondering why me? Then I realized… I’m the biggest threat to your hollow, hateful scheme. Because you can’t claim that you’re targeting marginalized kids in the name of “parental rights” if another parent is standing up and saying no.

“So you dehumanize and marginalize ME. You say I’m one of THEM. You say she’s a groomer, she supports pedophilia, she wants children to believe they were responsible for slavery and to feel bad about themselves because they’re white. Here’s a little background on who I really am.

“Growing up my family was active in our church. I sang in choir. My mom taught CCD. One day, our priest called a meeting with my mom and told her that she was not living up to the church’s expectations, b/c she was divorced, and because he didn’t see her w us at mass every Sunday.

“Where was my mom on Sunday? She was at a soup kitchen. With me. My mom taught me at a young age that Christianity and faith was about being a part of a community, about recognizing our privilege and blessings and doing what we could to be of service to others -especially people who were marginalized, targeted, who had less…often unfairly.

“I learned that SERVICE was far more important than performative nonsense like being seen in the same pew every Sunday or writing “Christian” in your Twitter bio and using it as a shield to target and marginalize already-marginalized people.

“I also stand on the shoulders of people like Father Ted Hesburgh, the longtime president of the University of Notre Dame who was active in the civil rights movement, who recognized his power and privilege as a white man, a faith leader, and the head of an influential and well-respected institution – and who saw Black people in this country being targeted and discriminated against and beaten, and reached out and locked arms with Dr. Martin Luther King when he was alive, when it was unpopular and risky, and marching with them to say, “We got you.” To offer protection and service and allyship, to try to right wrongs and fix the injustice in the world.

“So who am I? I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slavery or redlining or systemic racism means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense.

“No child alive today is responsible for slavery. No one is this room is responsible for slavery. But each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history. We decide what happens next, and how WE respond to history and the world around us.

“We are not responsible for the past. We also cannot change the past. We can’t pretend that it didn’t happen, or deny people their very right to exist.

“I want my daughter to know that she is loved, supported, and seen for whoever she becomes. I want her to be curious, empathetic, and kind. I want every child to feel seen, heard, and supported, not marginalized and targeted if they are not straight, white, and Christian.

“People who are different are not the reason our roads are in bad shape, or healthcare costs are too high, or teachers are leaving the profession. We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they’re not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact peoples lives.

I know that hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it happen. And I want to be very clear right now: Call me whatever you want. I know who I am. I know what faith and service mean, and what it calls for in this moment.”

 

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Letter From Birmingham Jail

In early April 1963, the civil rights movement, led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and it’s co-founder, Martin Luther King, Jr, seemed to be stalled. Despite non-violent protests across the nation, the Kennedy Administration, which had come to power promising civil rights legislation, had seemingly turned a blind eye. They were still supportive, or so it seemed, but they weren’t doing much to fulfill their promise.

The SCLC, along with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, had planned to stage demonstrations in Birmingham, known as one of the nation’s most racist cities. But on April 10, Circuit Judge W.A. Jenkins issued an order prohibiting “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing.” Leaders of the movement quickly decided they would disobey the judge’s order, and King decided that he would put himself in position to be arrested, a move he hoped would garner the attention of President John F. Kennedy, and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

King was arrested and spent eight days in a dark and dank Birmingham jail cell. Early in his stay, King was given a local newspaper that contained a letter written by eight white local clergymen taking King to task for his methods. In the letter, the men agreed that things needed to change. They indicated that the nation needed to treat blacks more fairly and with more respect, but they felt King and his followers needed to be more patient. They said that blacks should wait and allow the nation to come around in its own time. They blamed King and his protests for creating tension and backlash among whites, and they complained that the protests and sit-ins that King was leading were illegal.

As King read the letter in the newspaper, he began writing a response in the margins of the story. When he ran out of space in the margins, he wrote on small note pads his attorney had left behind. Finally, he was able to get his hands on a legal pad. What he wrote became known as “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Although King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. is more well known, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” may be King’s most important, most powerful work.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” was first published on May 19, 1963 in the New York Post (after the New York Times Magazine decided against publishing it), and was subsequently published in the June issue of Liberation Magazine, the June 12, 1963 edition of The Christian Century, and the June 24, 1963 edition of The New Leader. It later was reprinted in The Progressive and The Atlantic Monthly, and was part of King’s 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait.

Although it is long, I encourage you to read “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” It is one of the most important documents in our country’s history, and it is a classic publication on civil disobedience by a man who was being held, in essence, as a political prisoner.


Letter from Birmingham Jail

 

Martin Luther King Jr.

Birmingham City Jail

April 16, 1963

 

Bishop C.C. J. Carpenter
Bishop Joseph A. Durick
Rabbi Milton L. Grafman
Bishop Paul Harmon
The Rev. George M. Murray
The Rev. Edward V. Ramage
The Rev. Earl Stalings

 

My Dear Fellow Clergymen,

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all of the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliate organizations all across the South, one being the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Whenever necessary and possible, we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promises. So I am here, along with several members of my staff, because we were invited here. I am here because I have basic organizational ties here.

Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. I would not hesitate to say that it is unfortunate that so-called demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham at this time, but I would say in more emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this city left the Negro community with no other alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of them, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants, such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises, Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstration. As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many experiences of the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” and “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?” We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this was the best time to bring pressure on the merchants for the needed changes. Then it occurred to us that the March election was ahead, and so we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that Mr. Conner was in the runoff, we decided again to postpone action so that the demonstration could not be used to cloud the issues. At this time we agreed to begin our nonviolent witness the day after the runoff.

This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action. We, too, wanted to see Mr. Conner defeated, so we went through postponement after postponement to aid in this community need. After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask, “Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So, the purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely. Some have asked, “Why didn’t you give the new administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this inquiry is that the new administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Conner, they are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was “well timed” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “wait.” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never.” It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts 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, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; 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 stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodyness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an “I – it” relationship for the “I – thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn’t segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow, and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because it did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote, despite the fact that the Negroes constitute a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be considered democratically structured?

These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate  is obeying these anti-religious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last 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 the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor 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 can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until 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 asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because His unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said, “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of “somebodyness” that they have adjusted to segregation, and, on the other hand, of a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable devil. I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need not follow the do-nothingism of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. I’m grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as “rabble-rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who are working through the channels of nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sitins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people, “Get rid of your discontent.” But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.

But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? — “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice? — “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? — “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist? — “Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God.” Was not John Bunyan an extremist? — “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a mockery of my conscience.” Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? — “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist? — “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” So the  question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent, and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some, like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, and James Dabbs, have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic, and understanding terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They sat in with us at lunch counters and rode in with us on the freedom rides. They have languished in filthy roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry policemen who see them as “dirty nigger lovers.” They, unlike many of their moderate brothers, have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me rush on to mention my other disappointment. I have been disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand this past Sunday in welcoming Negroes to your Baptist Church worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Springhill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel who loves the church, who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its Spiritual blessings, and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and with deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sidelines and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, “Those are social issues which the gospel has nothing to do with,” and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which made a strange distinction between bodies and souls, the sacred and the secular.

There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period that the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was the thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.” But they went on with the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven” and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

Things are different now. The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s often vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I meet young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust. 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 presently 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 the destiny of America. Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson scratched across the pages of history the majestic word of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries our foreparents labored here without wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation — and yet out of a bottomless vitality our people continue to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

I must close now. But before closing I am impelled to mention one other point in your statement that troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I don’t believe you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I don’t believe you would so quickly commend the policemen if you would observe their ugly and inhuman treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys, if you would observe them, as they did on two occasions, refusing to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I’m sorry that I can’t join you in your praise for the police department. It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public handling of the demonstrators. In this sense they have been publicly “nonviolent.” But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, courageously and with a majestic sense of purpose facing jeering and hostile mobs and the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman of Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with ungrammatical profundity, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.” They will be young high school and college students, young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’s sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Never before have I written a letter this long — or should I say a book? I’m afraid that it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

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