Keep listening, learning, and growing

This sto­ry was first pub­lished on January 17, 2022.

During the next week and the month of February, we are like­ly to see online posts and peo­ple using quo­ta­tions from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”  A few years ago, a friend talked of read­ing the let­ter in its entire­ty.  This prompt­ed me to do the same.

The let­ter, pub­lished on June 12, 1963, is 7,000 words long, which may be why I had not read it before. Then I learned that the let­ter was writ­ten in response to a state­ment by eight white reli­gious lead­ers in the south call­ing Dr. King’s actions “unwise and untime­ly.” In the let­ter, Dr. King out­lines the neces­si­ty of the movement’s non­vi­o­lent resis­tance to laws regard­ing seg­re­ga­tion uti­liz­ing demon­stra­tions, sit-ins, and boy­cotts. He dis­cussed these actions as means to change unjust laws and estab­lish justice. 

The let­ter is thor­ough in defense of the actions tak­en, and its tone is right­eous. What res­onat­ed with me is that the let­ter reveals Dr. King’s deep dis­ap­point­ment with white mod­er­ates.  He wrote:

“I must make two hon­est con­fes­sions to you, my Christian and Jewish broth­ers. First, I must con­fess that over the past 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 his stride toward free­dom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor 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 can­not agree with your meth­ods of direct action’; who pater­nal­is­ti­cal­ly believes he can set the timetable for anoth­er man’s free­dom; who lives by a myth­i­cal con­cept of time and who con­stant­ly advis­es the Negro to wait for 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 reread­ing the let­ter a few days ago, I reflect­ed on these words and believe that his dis­ap­point­ment would remain if Dr. King were still with us. Fifty-eight years lat­er, we may focus on what has changed, but we must also exam­ine the painful real­i­ty of what has not. We must ask our­selves: how much do white folks like me val­ue main­tain­ing order ver­sus striv­ing for jus­tice? Dr. King wrote:

“We will have to repent in this gen­er­a­tion not mere­ly for the hate­ful words and actions of the bad peo­ple but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

As a white per­son who con­sid­ers her­self open-mind­ed, I have come to real­ize how lit­tle I know and under­stand.  I have become will­ing to learn, to lis­ten, to read, and to engage with oth­ers who want to do the same and the patient peo­ple who are will­ing to help us. I have come to believe that my job today is to keep lis­ten­ing, learn­ing, and grow­ing, and espe­cial­ly to not remain silent.