Status Updates From Letter from Birmingham Jail

"My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure."

"The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act."

"The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue."

"+so must we see the need for nonviolent gad flies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

"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,+"

"I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is neces sary for growth."

"You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a ten sion that a community which has constantly , refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."

"We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic- withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change."

"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?'"

"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."

"There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation."

"In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action."

"I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes."

"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."

"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 Birming ham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here."

"If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have litde time for anything other than such correspond ence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work."