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As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification.
We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating? Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?"
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...More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation no merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
{this is why I --blue collar lit, not MLK, freak out, imagining the gigantic numbers of good, hard-working people who don't vote}
Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.
Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
...On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. ...I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices ...of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"
...Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists. ...
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That was a letter to churches & ministers, basically trying to encourage these folks to get off their -- pews -- and help the cause.
You read that whole letter, and you get a sense of what a struggle this was. My God. The word "cause" which I just used is way too weak to apply, here so -- Sorry for using it.
That was not a "good cause," it was a
holy effort,
waged by unbelievably courageous people
in the midst of terrifying odds
(attitudes, not only of prejudice, but hatred at the one extreme, &, at the lesser extreme, simply that too-too-comfortable, ensconced, indulgent trust in the status quo...
"Why this? Why now? Why me? Just let it lie...."
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I cannot imagine too many things that would be harder than that struggle.
I like how Rev. King used the word "nonconformists" -- you don't hear that word too much now.
-30-
Thank you for sharing this.
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