These were my remarks at this year Martin Luther King Jr. Winter Convocation
The touchstone for this year’s Winter Convocation is Dr. Martin Luther King’s remarkable “Letter from Birmingham Jail[1].” If you haven’t read it before, please do. If you have, you know it’s time to visit it again.
On April 10th 1963, a circuit court judge issued an injunction against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing, and picketing” in Birmingham. Two days later, Dr. King and others were arrested for participating in a peaceful protest – an act of civil disobedience. Now, for the first time in fifty years, we have members of our government again threatening to arrest Americans for peaceful assembly and free expression – how timely this letter is.
That same day, a group of Birmingham clergy published an open letter in the newspaper entitled “A Call for Unity.” Their letter acknowledged that the segregationist policies that surrounded them were unjust, but they argued that it should be left to the courts to solve. “Let’s be patient and get along.”
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is Dr. King’s response to those clergy. As Tiffany read in the opening, King notes that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and that “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Later, he states that “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
The sentence that struck me most this time is, “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” Written 63 years ago, those words could not be more relevant in this moment.
“Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” And yet, yesterday’s New York Times noted, of the more than 540,000 individuals deported by the U.S. government in the past year, approximately 230,000 were living here.
King’s message is that we are called to act on behalf of those whose rights are threatened or denied. He called on us be peaceful, to act out of love, and when necessary to commit acts of civil disobedience, a term popularized by the 19th-century American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau.
Thoreau was also jailed for acting on his principles. He refused to pay his taxes because he was opposed to slavery and the Mexican-American War. In his essay “On Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau states:
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?…
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth, — certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank. exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see…that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.[2]
Thoreau’s work inspired Gandhi, Dr. King, and generations of students as they have sought ways to effect change in their communities and the world.
For many years, Lynn and I lived a few blocks from the Woolworths in Greensboro, NC where the sit-in movement began.
At 4:30 in the afternoon on February 1st 1960 Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, and Franklin McClain, The Greensboro Four, four first-year students at North Carolina A&T University, walked into the local Woolworths, sat at the lunch counter, requested service and were refused. They read for an hour, and the store closed for the day. Unlike Montgomery, this was not a reaction, but a premeditated action. They had gathered regularly the previous semester, they read Gandhi and Thoreau and, inspired by the work of Dr. King, they sought a way to end segregation.
They returned the following day as a group of twenty. Soon similar actions spread across the country. Five and a half months later, Woolworths began to desegregate their lunch counters, the last to do so was in 1965.
Like the civil disobedience efforts Dr. King led, the sit-in movement was peaceful though not always treated peacefully. It was driven by love but often faced hate. It required discipline and respect while knowing that with each delay, justice was being denied.
This is the Code of Conduct students at Fisk University wrote for their sit-in participants[3].
Don’t strike back or curse if abused.
Don’t laugh out.
Don’t hold conversations with floor walkers.
Don’t block entrances to the store and aisles.
Show yourself courteous and friendly at all times.
Sit straight and always face the counter.
Remember love and non-violence.
May God bless each of you.
They knew that to defeat the worst of what was around them would require the best of themselves.
We have seen colleges and universities across the nation curtailing their efforts to build diverse and inclusive communities. Those that have called for these retrenchments have lost sight of the fact that that is where our best selves can be found.
At Susquehanna, we know that we are strengthened by our diversity, we know that our successes are interdependent, we know that we are caught up in a “single garment of destiny.”
At Susquehanna, we know we are called to achieve justice for all, to lead with love, and to serve selflessly. We know we have come a long way, but more importantly, we know we have a long way yet to go.
At Susquehanna, we know that the Constitution and standing statutes are the legal frameworks that secure our ability to do the right thing no matter how loud the contrary rhetoric may be.
We also know that when we bring our best selves to each other, our clarity and courage are strengthened and our commitments made deeper. These are tough times, but we are tougher, and we are better together. Let’s remember to smile, to say hello, to greet the stranger, hold the door, and check in with each other – including those with whom we disagree.
Remember love and non-violence. May God bless each of you.
[1] King, Martin Luther Jr.: “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.” American Friends Service Committee, 1963.
[2] From Thoreau, Henry David: “Resistance to Civil Government” or “Civil Disobedience,” 1849.
[3] Probably adapted from Bernard Lafayette and John Lewis.