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4 Questions
Dr. King's 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' is a timeless call to action
Editor’s note: When we celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday each year, many of us return to his writing and public remarks. We read or listen to the speech he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, “I Have a Dream.” We revisit the last speech he ever gave, “I've Been to the Mountaintop," delivered the night before he was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. But Dr. King’s advocacy and legacy is much more complicated and nuanced than his two most popular sermons.
To celebrate MLK Day this year, we asked two nonprofit leaders to reflect on Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written on April 16, 1963. We talked with Leon Smith, an attorney and the executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) and Dr. Tasia Cerezo, the CEO and co-founder of Meryl’s Safe Haven, a Worcester organization that provides support to young people aging out of foster care by the Department of Children and Family, in addition to families in need of shelter and resources.
On April 12, 1963, Dr. King was arrested by the Birmingham police for violating an Alabama law against “mass public demonstrations.” At the time, Birmingham was among the most segregated cities in the United States. Dr. King and his colleagues in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) were organizing a nonviolent direct action campaign that called for the desegregation of schools. The Birmingham Campaign, which involved young people and children in its demonstrations, was met with brutal force by Bull Connor’s police force. Dr. King’s letter was written in response to criticism by white clergy. They were supportive of the cause of civil rights, but had publicly called the efforts in April 1963, “unwise and untimely." Part of King’s response was this: “I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to ‘justice.’”
“Freedom is never, ever voluntarily given,” Leon Smith told Cog, echoing a recurring theme in Dr. King’s letter. “Freedom only comes with that push, that constant push of advocacy.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
– Cloe Axelson
When did you first encounter Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”?
Leon Smith: I grew up in rural Appalachia. I lived in an all Black community in the poorest county in the second poorest state in America. Growing up, I saw a lot of inequality and things I believed were unfair, and it always bothered me. This included seeing my friends — who were not bad kids, but they were wrestling with trauma and a lot of issues — struggle or just get punished over and over and over again, without ever getting help for what was going on.
My mom gave me a copy of the letter when I was 16 years old. And from the time I read it, it really was transformational. It helped affirm the fact that when things aren't right, you make a stand. And you make that stand right then and there. And you continue to push for change.
It really became a foundation of my belief system as an advocate. The one quote that really, resonates deeply for me is” justice too long delayed is justice denied,” which in addition to being an amazing quote, really establishes my core belief that injustice in all forms must be met with urgency when people are suffering or experiencing unfair treatment at the hands of systems that are designed to serve them or protect them. That must always be met, not just with action — but immediate and sustained action.
The beauty of the letter, I think, is that Dr. King is real about the fact that action is going to create discomfort. But that’s not just OK — it’s essential, because as he notes, we’ve not made a single gain in civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure.
Dr. Tasia Cerezo: I cannot, honestly, say when I first encountered “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” It is not one of his pieces that is as widely talked about. I think it’s interesting that he begins his letter by acknowledging that he would typically dismiss his critics, but the fact that he doesn’t, really provides an introduction to who he was as a man.
I think as leaders, sometimes the criticism becomes a lot louder than the chants of appreciation and good — and we begin to question whether or not we should continue the work we do. The amazing thing to me, as an educator, is that Dr. King didn’t respond to his critics with criticism; he opened the door for conversation, and he tried to educate them. I think today, even with all the information accessible at our fingertips, ignorance seems to supersede all the facts we have accessible to us.
The beauty of the letter, I think, is that Dr. King is real about the fact that action is going to create discomfort.
What are we getting wrong about Dr. King’s legacy?
LS: That there is so much more to who he was and to his lasting legacy than the “I Have A Dream” speech. While incredible, his role as an anti-poverty and anti-war crusader too often gets overlooked. Also, his willingness to confront his allies — including moderates and the middle class — when he felt that they had become too comfortable with the status quo and did not stand strongly enough for the less fortunate. He has a much deeper legacy of courage in making a stand than gets shared in many settings.
TC: I believe a lot of people think Dr. King only focused on issues of race and racism. He was a man of civil rights and equity for all; that included women’s rights, that included equal pay. We can’t ignore that (some) white people walked alongside him, arm in arm, because the fight was based on equality.
Why should people revisit this letter, instead of any of the other of Dr. King’s seminal works?
TC: I think in some ways, it’s a forgotten piece of work. But if you listen to it — not just read the letter — if you listen to it, you hear his passion and you can make connections to what's happening right now in our society, whether we’re talking about education or housing or criminal justice. Oppression continues, right? I think it really could be something he wrote yesterday, because it still applies to everything, and there's a piece in there for everyone. This letter is a timeless call to action.
The same urgency for action and advocacy that's in Dr. King’s letter — it was relevant then and it's relevant now.
LS: The type of racism and injustice and intolerance that Dr.King fought against wasn't just fixed to Alabama and the rural south, and it wasn't just fixed to that period in the 1960s. It continues to permeate our society to this day. Massachusetts loves to call itself a blue state, loves to proclaim its progressive bonafides, but per The Sentencing Project we have the worst racial disparities impacting Latino youth in incarceration in America. Latino youth are 6.5 times as likely to be incarcerated as white youth in Massachusetts — that’s the worst in America. Black youth are 13.7 times as likely to be incarcerated as white youth, the fourth worst in America.
People sit here and they talk about, Oh my God, Texas is so scary. Florida is so scary. But what about the racial disparities here? The problem of race is a national one, and it's present here in Massachusetts just as much as it is in those other places. The same urgency for action and advocacy that's in Dr. King’s letter — it was relevant then and it's relevant now.
Dr. King was a young man, only 34, when he wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Children and young people were very much involved in the Birmingham Campaign, which historians say created the groundswell of public support necessary for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both of you work very closely with young people today. When you reflect back on MLK’s leadership, in the context of his relative youth at the time, what do you think?
LS: I think to this day, there’s this misguided idea that leadership has to come from those who are older. One real lesson of the Civil Rights Movement is respecting the power of young people to not only follow, but to lead as seen in the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham in 1963 and other instances. And when we're talking about issues impacting young people, they have to be a part of that decision-making process, part of that change and reform. That's something we're incredibly mindful of, and it’s one of the pillars of our work in community engagement and coalition building.
I think there are far too many of us who engage in adultism. Who just dismiss young people simply because they're young instead of understanding that those closest to the pain, including our youth, should always be closest to the work being done to address the problem.
TC: I think that a lot of young people now don't know who Martin Luther King Jr. was and that’s unfortunate. Or if they do, they know that they get the day off but that's it, and that isn’t every young person. I think for them, he’s too far removed — even though he was so young and it wasn’t that long ago.
I think a lot of young people look to rappers. A lot of young folks I’ve worked with were really big fans of Nipsey Hussle, which was strange to me until I started to learn more about him. He’d done some things, but he was also a really big community man. If a young person has a sense of leadership, I try to remind them that you don’t need someone to groom them to be a leader. Figure out who you are, what you want to do and the people who believe in you will always support you — and it doesn’t matter if you were once troubled.
Leon Smith is the executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CJJ), which advocates for statewide systemic reform to achieve equitable justice for young people. CJJ believes that young people in the justice system, and public safety, are best served by systems that recognize the ways children are different from adults, focus on rehabilitation and promote healthy development.
Dr. Tasia Cerezo is the CEO and co-founder of Meryl’s Safe Haven, a Worcester-based organization that provides shelter and support to young people who are aging out of Department of Children and Family (DCF) care and shelter to families. Meryl’s Safe Haven aims to provide holistic services to address root causes, and seeks to be an impetus for change that recognizes humanity and the importance of community.
