Martin Luther King Jr.s scorn for white moderates in his Birmingham jail letter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/15/martin-luther-king-jr-s-scathing-critique-of-white-moderates-from-the-birmingham-jail/?__twitter_impression=true&hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_retro-birmingham-802am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.afcf70cbf9a1
By DeNeen L. Brown January 15 at 7:00 AM
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In Letter From a Birmingham Jail, King offered a scathing critique of white moderates unwilling to do the right thing that still resonates today:
"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 Negros great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Council-er 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 mans 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."
To read the whole letter, which is archived at Stanford Universitys Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute,
go here. Or you can listen to a recording of
King reading the letter here.