On April 16, 1963,
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter from the Birmingham jail.
The entire letter
is 6000 words long, but the link below is a shortened version. I have highlighted the portions that are applicable
to American under Donald Trump.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/letter-from-birmingham-jail
“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 85 affiliate organizations all across the
South … 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.
There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and
churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation.
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 demonstrations. 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 in 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 the
process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and
repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “are you able to accept the blows
without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?”
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single
gain in civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure.
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
20 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 can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on
television, and see the 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 who is
asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people
so mean
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’ “Councilor” or the Ku Klux Klanner,
but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice;
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 sit-ins and freedom rides.“
Wikipedia also provides some additional details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail
The "Letter from Birmingham Jail",
also known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and
"The Negro Is Your Brother", is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. It says that people have a moral responsibility to
break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to
come through the courts. Responding to being
referred to as an "outsider", King writes: "Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere."
King's letter, dated April 16, 1963, responded
to several criticisms made by the "A Call for
Unity" clergymen, who agreed that social
injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should
be fought solely in the courts, not the streets. He also criticized the
assertion that African Americans ought to wait patiently while these battles
were fought in the courts.
(When we listened to Bernie Sanders and
AOC at a local high school recently, one of the items that we passed out was a
button that read “More Perfect Union”, which echoed what pastors urged in the
1960’s)
Against the clergymen's assertion that
demonstrations could be illegal, King argued that civil disobedience was not
only justified in the face of unjust laws but also was necessary and even
patriotic: "The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws:
just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has
not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely,
one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
*****************************************************
How
does his letter relate to today?
There are number of similarities.
First of all, the Trump administration
has no respect for the law.
None of the people in the prison in El
Salvador were given the due process guaranteed by our constitution. Kilmar Abrego
Garcia was sent to the prison by accident, despite the fact that he had
committed no crimes, and was protected from deportation by a court order that was
issued in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office. The Supreme court recently
demanded that he had to be returned to America as soon as possible, but the
Trump administration has refused to comply.
The Trump administration has revoked hundreds of
student visas in nearly every corner of the country as part of a vast
immigration crackdown – and few universities know why.
More
than 1,000 international students and recent graduates at more than 130 schools
in the US have had their visas or statuses revoked in the Student and Exchange
Visitor Information System this year, according to university statements and
spokespeople.
Colleges
and universities in 40 states have confirmed the visa and status termination of
their students to CNN.
At
Middle Tennessee State University, six students from countries in Asia, Europe
and the Middle East had their visas revoked, according to university
spokesperson Jimmy Hart.
“The
University does not know the specific reason(s) for the visa status changes,
only that they were changed within the federal database that monitors them,”
Hart said.
The Trump administration on
Friday abruptly moved to restore thousands of international students’ ability
to study in the United States legally, but immigration officials insisted they would still try to terminate
that legal status despite a wave of legal challenges
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/us/university-international-student-visas-revoked/index.html
On April 25, a 2-year-old citizen was
deported to Honduras with no meaningful process.
F.B.I. arrests
judge: F.B.I. agents arrested a county judge in Milwaukee and
charged her with helping an immigrant evade federal authorities. A spokesman
for the U.S. Marshals confirmed that the judge, Hannah Dugan, had been arrested
— a major escalation of the Trump administration’s fight with local officials
over deportations. She was released after a brief appearance in a nearby
federal court on Friday
(The link shown above has a LOT more information on the
Milwaukee judge)
The decision to
charge a sitting state court judge is a major escalation in the Trump
administration’s battle with local authorities over deportations. The
administration has demanded, under threat of investigation or prosecution, that
local officials not impede federal efforts to deport millions of undocumented
immigrants, and the arrest sent a message that the administration intends to
take a harder line with those that do.
Trump’s administration has done a lot of damage during his
first 90 days.
Few of his cabinet members are qualified for the job that
hold – and Pete Hegseth is the worst. A majority of the cabinet members got their
positions because they were loyal to Trump AND they made contributions to his
campaign. For example, Linda McMahon is now in charge of the Department of Education,
even though her total education experience came from serving less than 2 years on
the school board in Connecticut. However, she DID contribute $21 million to
Trump’s campaign.
Elon Musk was the top of the heap on contributions, because
he spent over $250 million to get Trump elected.
Trump has upended the alliances that have kept the world safe
since 1945. His actions in Ukraine clearly show that he favors Putin over Zelensky,
which means that the countries of Europe will be forced to contribute further aid.
Trump’s Saturday morning
post also took aim at media coverage of his mediation of the Ukraine and Russia
peace talks, as well as both of his predecessors, former Presidents Barack
Obama and Joe Biden, whom he accused of leaving him a “mess” to clean up.
Shortly after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy in the Vatican, President Donald Trump accused Russian President
Vladimir Putin of prolonging Russia’s war with Ukraine and threatened secondary
sanctions in a post on Truth Social, days after Trump had issued another
rare criticism targeting Putin.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/04/26/trump-suggests-russia-could-face-secondary-sanctions-as-he-accuses-putin-of-tapping-him-along-over-ukraine-war/?utm_medium=browser_notifications&utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=10246524
The decisions made by the administration change nearly on a daily
basis, which has battered the stock market and upended investment decisions. Churchill
Downs has put a $920 million renovation on hold because of uncertainty about
future construction costs.
Assuming that Trump does not die in
office, there will not be any improvement in our country until the 2026 mid-terms.
For now, the courts have put a check on
Trump’s worst impulses, and the nationwide protests organized by 50501 will eventually
force some changes as well.
Never forget that public pressure, as exemplified by the March in Selma in 1965, changed the course of history in our country, starting with the Voting Civil Rights Act of 1965.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act
No comments:
Post a Comment