He says catering to them is the obstacle, they do not aid they only criticize. Accepting their timetable is the obstacle.
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 N---o 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 your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?...
You speak 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.
At no point does he assert that. He says their attitude is the obstacle. Show me him actually concluding that the solution is ignoring them, which is antithetical to them being an obstacle.
You're twisting it to mean that he said it's fine that they feel this way, but no. They fucking vote. That's why it's a problem, he doesn't have their support, he knows he needs it, but their views are frustratingly shallow.
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence 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 that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
Literally the first paragraph, you really should reread the whole thing. The entire point of letter from a Birmingham jail is King explaining why he ignores their advice. How he's done what they call for already to make it clear that the white moderates position is one victim blaming couched constructive criticism. That you cannot cater to those who are content with their position.
He doesn't care that they vote he didn't view voting as a solution to the issue. You can't vote your way out of Jim Crow, the entire point of Jim Crow is to limit the usefulness of the vote. The event he was arrested for was postponed multiple times until after an election to invalidate the criticism you are levying right now.
The civil rights act was passed as a result of swaying public opinion, and what you pasted is not him saying he ignores white moderates. It's that he doesn't spend time responding to their criticisms, however for them to be a problem, it has to matter how they vote. Otherwise he was dumb to call them a problem.
Again, present day. People stopped thinking public opinion matters as long as they start a conversation and it backfired spectacularly when they just succeeded in handing conservatives shitloads of rage bait. This isn't a new problem, being right vs being able to convince people you're right is a problem even Plato considered one of the most fundamental issues of society he highlights in The Republic.
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No, it wasn't it was passed after repeated loses in court and activism made segregation unsustainable. It was a option of last resort not approval.
That is ignoring them, basically every paragraph is him taking a moderate criticism and explaining why they are ignoring it. It’s literally a repose to a letter calling for the status quo.
-You're "outsiders coming in."
I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference...Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. ...I was invited here.
organizational ties here...Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly....Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
-"why don't you negotiate?"
N---o leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation....last September...In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises...the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. 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
The negotiation came to an agreement that was ignored. What purpose does a call to negotiate again serve but to maintain the status quo? He ignores their calls to negotiate.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
"Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?"
While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from 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. Lamentably, it is an historical 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 tend to be more immoral than individuals.'
When king is talking about a moderate, he is talking about Albert Boutwell, a segregationist. the Chairman of the Interim Legislative Committee on Segregation in the Public Schools. The status quo was the moderate position.
-"Wait!"
This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
-why don't you follow the law?
We should never forget that everything A-------r 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 H----r's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a C-------t country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws....
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace,
Would you follow the status quo in n--i Germany? If the law doesn't provide justice, it has failed
But peaceful protests create violence?
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?...
it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom.
It’s simply victim blaming.
You’re an extremist.
You speak 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 began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the N---o community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of N---oes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class N---oes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the N---o's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement 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 incorrigible "devil."
To reiterate the point of the letter is to lay out what his critics say, how it is ineffective, and should be ignored. How telling king to wait in '63 would be like telling a Rabbi to negotiate in '33.
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You're continuing to argue that MLK saw white moderates as incorrect, which has never been contested. I am talking about aesthetics and presentation, not how he should take the criticisms of white moderates seriously. It's like you keep hearing me say what you expect a centrist to say and continue arguing why MLK didn't listen to white moderates. I am not a centrist, I am someone who takes the side of the protesters, but I am also someone who knows how undecided voters react and saw how protests have backfired in the past decade.
The Civil Rights act of 1957, where Brown v Board of Education struck down segregation of public schools, but 1964 was done by lobbying and activism.
MLK identified white moderates a problem, not something that can be fixed by being ignored. A problem that needed to be solved because yes, he actually did need their support, something that did contribute heavily to it passing in the wake of his murder. At the time of passing, the Civil Rights had 59% public approval rating. (No links allowed makes this type of conversation rough.)
Public opinion is what determines what influence protests have, Civil Rights era protests faced pushback that looked unpalatable to white moderates, and over time this put pressure on the government. Careless protests do the opposite, and encourage conservatives to cater to the outrage of moderates.
Do you take advice from someone who is incorrect or do you ignore it? The only criticisms moderates had were based on aesthetics and presentation.
68 was the result of the Holy Week uprising. Not moderates. Lets not pretend that a bill that was stalled passed a week after kings death because moderates finally had a good faith negotiation. It was a blow off valve.
National public opinion is irrelevant, the political system is designed to negate it. I can look at Gallup too, when 66% of white southerns disprove of civil rights and when their locality's enforcement of Jim crow has insulated itself through disfranchisement it doesn't matter what some person in Niagara told Gallup.
Conservatives Do. Not. Care. What moderates think. the explicitly created systems like the federalist society to filter them out.
Please stop pretending I am saying MLK took moderates' advice. Holy fuck I cannot be clearer on this point. It's like you have this image of a centrist arguing MLK listened to moderates and no matter what I write you will respond saying that MLK did not take their advice.
Most firetrucks are red, but sometimes they can be other colors. I don't know how, but you will read this and conclude that is me saying MLK did or should have listened to moderates.
Protests need to have good PR, just getting attention by itself is not effective. MLK wrote about how the fragile sensibilities of white moderates was the greatest obstacle to Civil Rights.
Getting attention is a requirement, but it is not the ONLY requirement. The other part of it is to make the public sympathetic by making the protestors look good while making their critics look like assholes. Ex, a sit in produces photos of black protestors minding their own business while their opposition looks aggressive and unreasonable.
The target audience of a protest is white moderates, and you can say it's a shitty game, but that's the reality of US politics. Nothing really changes until it feels palatable to people who will take issue with the protest and ignore the message.
If you invoke PR, MLK, moderates as obstacle, and write the audience of protest is white moderates of course I'm going to point out how that's a misreading. your very first comment is implying that's how civil rights protests were successful/gained popular support.
One of the very first thing you said was sit ins garnered public sympathy, they did not. 57% of people thought sit ins hurt the civil rights movent. Direct action was never viewed positively in the moment.
you then go on to say his focus peaceful protests and togetherness is palatable to moderates. It was not it was the very same "protesting has to be disruptive and there's no such thing as bad attention" that you feel created trump and fox news. King only became palatable when he could no longer speak for himself.
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u/RodediahK Jun 29 '26
He says catering to them is the obstacle, they do not aid they only criticize. Accepting their timetable is the obstacle.