I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown.
Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise.
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 a process of self-purification.
We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.
Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? – “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”
The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws.
The purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest.
Was not Jesus an extremist in love? – “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”
Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? – “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”
Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?
I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality.