50 Years After Letter from a Birmingham Jail: White Clergy, Journalists Revisit Dr. King's Masterful Prose (Video)

Birmingham police arrested Martin Luther King Jr. on 12 April 1963,

and he penned his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" while

imprisoned, slipping it as a crumpled wad of paper to his friend

Clarence Jones. Jones did not know what it was until later.

On its 50th anniversary, rather than comment on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," I'm commemorating its significance by sharing what others have said about the letter.

First, CNN has a report on how the Civil Rights leader passed the letter from his jail cell to his adviser and assistant speech writer, Clarence Benjamin Jones. Until I saw the article, I had not envisioned its delivery quite this way:

[King] was unshaven, dirty and dejected. King had spent several days alone in solitary confinement with no mattress in a filthy dark jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama.

"Take this out of here," King whispered as he grabbed Jones' belt and stuffed balled-up newspapers and toilet tissue down his pants.

Jones, King's lawyer, wondered if King was starting to lose it. He didn't pay attention to what King had given him -- it was just a mish-mash of words and arrows scribbled on bits of paper.

"Not until five days later did I actually read a mimeographed copy of the letter," says Jones. "To be honest with you, I was more worried about bail money, not what he had written."

Yes, that "mish-mash of words and arrows scribbled on bits of paper" turned out to be the famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." In it, King responds to the eight white church leaders, supposed moderate allies of his era, who opposed his public protest demonstrations against segregation.  These clergymen regarded him as an interloper who should go home and stop rocking the boat. They were content to let the status quo of segregation go unchallenged indefinitely.

Once Jones realized what King had given him, he released the letter.

Following the initial circulation of King’s letter in Birmingham as a mimeographed copy, it was published in a variety of formats: as a pamphlet distributed by the American Friends Service Committee and as an article in periodicals such as Christian Century, Christianity and Crisis, the New York Post, and Ebony magazine. The first half of the letter was introduced into testimony before Congress by Representative William Fitts Ryan (D-NY) and published in the Congressional Record. One year later, King revised the letter and presented it as a chapter in his 1964 memoir of the Birmingham Campaign, Why We Can’t Wait, a book modeled after the basic themes set out in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

See more about the history of the letter in an article at Stanford University's website.

In the Times Picayune's video published today, white New Orleans pastors discuss the relevancy of Dr. King's letter to the Christian church and society in 2013.

Columnist Jarvis DeBerry at the Times Picayune asks the pastors, "Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?"

Rev. David Crosby of First Baptist in New Orleans answers that the church is always in danger of being captured by the "culture" and "the powers that be."

Shawn Anglim, pastor of First Grace United Methodist Church, says if the canon of Christian scripture were still open today, King's letter could be included, that King's words approach the weight of the Apostle's Paul's New Testament epistles on many levels. Later in the video, Anglim associates the struggle for African-Americans to attain equality in the 1960s with LGBQT citizens now seeking equality. He says that at his church he is speaking to his congregation and telling him that to be "gay is okay."

Other pastors identify other injustices that they think the Christian church has not adequately addressed, such as children in poverty and Louisiana's excessively high incarceration rates. You may watch the video to hear more of the discussion, and DeBerry's article has links to various pastors' written thoughts on King's letter. You will also see in the comments on his article that some white Southerners (I conclude) still want to argue that King was insignificant or that we should stop talking about race or of race in American history in any way that acknowledges black suffering.

Tulane professor Melissa Harris-Perry also talked about the letter over the weekend on her MSNBC show. Here's video, which includes clips of Tulane students reciting parts of King's letter.

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Two years ago, Jay Smooth of IllDoctrine reflected on "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and felt so strongly about it that he recorded a video of himself reciting parts in which King challenges the assumption that a minister should fear being called "an extremist" when it comes to obtaining justice. I've posted that video again below.



And as many readers of this blog know, I keep my digital remembrance of Dr. King up online at king.writingjunkie.net.

Blessed Is the Pair of Lovers Who Works Through Dysfunction (Video Soul)

Marvin Gaye's song "Just to Keep You Satisfied" is one of the best tunes ever written about the break-up of a marriage. It's believable that these people were at one point in a loving relationship, and it also conveys the pain of leaving while knowing that leaving is all you can do.

I have a friend who tells me that people who were really in love still love each other on some level even when they part. Going by my friend's assessment then, when the song's speaker tells his estranged wife that if she ever needs him, he'll be by her side, he is revealing just how deeply he has loved her. He wants no harm to come to her. If she needs him, he'll be there to help her. That's the line that tells her what they had was real. He is a mature, loving man, not just someone who gave up when the going got tough. He left because he couldn't think of a way to solve the dysfunction in a relationship that's become too painful to bear.

If you've ever had anyone love you that way, then you've experienced having someone really love you. Those who did not love you that deeply were mere impostors, and how sad to discover that you were married to an impostor.

"Just to Keep You Satisfied" is both painful and beautiful, just the way true love or star-crossed love often seems to be. Too bad they couldn't work through the pain.

Blessed is the pair of lovers who can work through the dysfunction and stay together; they shall inherit bliss. That's the most romantic thought I've had in three years, I think.

NFL Star's Wife Dies of Lung Cancer One Month After Wedding

This story reminds me of Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw's movie, Love Story, but this story is true and the people are African-American.

I discovered this true love story through a friend who shared it on Facebook via Clutch Magazine. LaKeasha Monique Rutledge-Draft and NFL free agent Chris Draft, the couple in a very moving weding video, were married on November 27, 2011, and one month later, December 27, Keasha died from lung cancer. ... As you can see in the wedding video produced by KRJ Productions, members of the bridal party wheeled the bride down the aisle, but she stood, walked, and took her vows sitting next to the groom. Later in the video you'll see her walk arm-in-arm with Chris down the aisle while a friend holds her oxygen tank. She also dances with her husband standing right behind her at the reception, and you can see the medical tube coming from her nose and circling around her cheeks.

Keasha was born in South Carolina and worked as a ... Read more at WritingJunkie.net.

And You Think What Song Is About Me?

Advice, ladies. If your current lover/spouse or your ex tells you that he always thinks of you when he hears Van Hunt's "Highlights," run to the nearest exit.

Letter to a Young Black Woman: Don't Whine Over White Princesses

I am most definitely not a Pollyanna, always seeing the best in everything, but neither do I see the worst. I consider myself to be a realist who sometimes battles an inner pessimist. However, I think in order to maintain sanity that if you're going to be pessimistic about your prospects, then at least ground your pessimism in reality. So, when I read an article at TheRoot.com today by Helena Andrews that declares "There are no black Kate Middletons" and saw her go on all weepy about an absence of black princesses, my eyes crossed.

Andrews is also the author of Bitch is the New Black, but her article at The Root is the most tedious mash-up of whining over black womanhood that I've read in a while. "Dear Helena," I whispered while reading it, "please grow up."

I don't mean to give this one young black woman and writer a hard time, but as a woman who is probably old enough to be her mother, I am giving her the same advice that I would give to my 29-year-old daughter if she started spouting this nonsense. I confess that I'm developing a low tolerance for young, educated African-American women crying over their so-called horrible lives.

The article frames Middleton's recent engagement to Prince William in the context of the plight of black women and Disney's fictitious black Princess Tiana of all things. I responded at The Root, but I had to cut out some of what I wanted to say because of the site's word limit. Here is my response in full:

This lamentation concerns me because it's not grounded in reality. I hope the writer will consider the lives of the other real white princesses of Great Britain who captured the imagination of America not that long ago and grasp that their lives were not fairy tales. Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson married Prince Andrew and Lady Diana married Prince Charles (Prince William's father). Fergie and Andrew are now divorced, and her life was just this year sinking in scandal. But the greater scandal was how Prince Charles handled Diana.

Prince Charles cheated on his princess with the woman he really loved, the one who he was not permitted to marry the first time. He and Diana divorced eventually, setting Great Britain on its ear, and later Diana died being chased by paparazzi. So, neither of these British princesses knew the genuine love of a prince because their princes were human men, not fantasy men.

Furthermore, if we look beyond the Disney cartoon mentioned, we will learn that Princess Tiana of The Princess and the Frog is based on a real black woman in New Orleans, Leah Chase, the owner of Dooky Chase restaurant, whose life has been successful. She didn't marry a monarch in waiting. She married Dooky. Her grandchildren now help her run the restaurant. If she had spent her youth focused on what she couldn't have or how much better off the white women around her fared, I wonder if she would have achieved anything.

But why does this article focus on how white men portrayed a black female cartoon character anyway?

As others have told the writer, there are real black princesses in the world to compare to the real white princesses of the world. Oprah just had on Princess Akosua of Ghana, a princess by blood not marriage, who played Celie's sister in the The Color Purple movie 20-plus years ago. She is a beautiful woman who was once married to the director James Singleton, and now lives a productive life without him.

This article may have been written for the sake of drawing hits to The Root, but going for the hits at the expense of making black women sound like pitiful souls who can't live full lives without princes like those from white monarchies does us all, both black men and black women, a disservice.

I recommend that instead of looking at ourselves through Tyler Perry's lens, which distorted the affirming message of Ntozake Shange's iconic play, and instead of seeing a potential role model in Disney's fictitious and only black princess, that we reflect on the more empowering words of Zora Neale Hurston:

"... I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are hurt about it. ... No, I do not weep at the world. I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

Hurston lived through a historical period of oppression that far exceeds the kind of oppression black women face today in terms of white society vs. black society. She didn't spend a lot of time crying in her bed. Neither should today's young black women cry in theirs because their opportunities for greatness surpass Hurston's.

Black women should not view reality, as this article seems to suggest, as some dismal prospect over which they have little power. If you act like a queen, if you pursue the dreams, maturity, education, and wisdom of a queen, then you are a queen. Queens trump princesses.

Nordette Adams
Her411.com

The Upcoming Royal Wedding: Will Americans Go Crazy Again? Are We in Love with Royalty?

Somewhat related, did you see how Oprah hugged real-life African Princess Akosua Busia recently? Do you even know who that is?

Let the pomp and circumstance begin. As CBS and many other news outlets, such as CNN, have reported, Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged:

It's official. Perhaps the most widely rumored wedding in recent times, and certainly one of the longest rumored, is going to happen. Prince William finally became engaged to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton, giving her his late mother's engagement ring and Britain the prospect of its biggest royal wedding since Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer almost 30 years ago.

I remember his parents' royal wedding in 1981. America went insane, causing observers to wonder whether Americans secretly long for a monarchy. I was a little baffled even then at all the attention, not to mention how the public obsessed over Diana. And yet, when she was killed in 1997, I remember having a sense of great loss.

The media mill is cranking out the stories already. People Magazine has a big spread, and the Globe and Mail's wasted no time in telling us what's really important, that this royal wedding " is anticipated to give a 620-million pound ($985-million US) boost to the British economy." And listen to the clatter of hundreds of cameras snapping pictures of the new royal couple in this CNN video. A little alarming in the context of the role paparazzi played in Lady Diana's death.

This first video below shows an interview with the engaged pair. It's sweet. They seem like nice kids, but my opinion falls in with some of the Australian blokes in the second video of this post: I'm just not that into the news.



The last man in the following video from Australia says, "I love a wedding, but yeah, I couldn't give a toss." The giddiness and apathy about the wedding breaks along gender lines, which is natural, I suppose. Women are all smiles; men kind of shrug.



I wonder will we learn again that American women and little girls are still fascinated by princesses and how many experts will trot out to tell us why this is so. I can relate a little to princessophilia. While I don't get all that excited about the British royals, I did find myself watching closely the real-life African princess, Akosua Busia of Ghana recently. I saw her on Oprah's big reunion for the movie The Color Purple, a beautiful woman, who used to be married to movie director John Singleton. Her clothes fascinated me, but I also wondered how being an African princess differs from being a European princess. In the movie, Princess Akosua played Celie's sister Nettie.

Drew and Brittany Brees Have Charming Nyquil Commercial

I just saw the Drew Brees commercial with his wife Brittany for Walgreens and Nyquil. It's posted above. I won't give it away, but it is sweet and cute.

Eric Clapton - Pilgrim (Video) and My Sour Marriage

This is my mood this morning, Eric Clapton's "Pilgrim." I used to play this song a lot during the end of my marriage, thinking it was about me and not feeling loved. Lately, I've been thinking this song is more about my ex. At least he would see it that way, that he was a sorrowful pilgrim for my love who was cast aside. That's how he plays his story for others. Does he believe that?

He once told me that the Doobie Brothers song, "What a Fool Believes" made him think of me. What is that to tell your wife? And he used to go around the house singing "If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty women your wife."

I'm not sure he ever really loved me, but looking at some song lyrics he's written but I won't link to, I think he thinks he loved me. However, I think what he thought was signs of his love from him were his projections onto me of his desire to be elsewhere in later years. If he were saying "I love you," I was only hearing, "Where you been? Who is that you're talking to?"

My mother and a friend of mine used to say, "If he's checking up on you that much, you need to start checking up on him." But I didn't. I figured if he's gone, he's gone. I refused to be the woman hanging around the man's leg, letting him drag her along as he walked out the door.

A new study bears out what my mother and friend were suggesting, that men are more harsh on their wives about minor infractions that could signal she's straying when they are thinking about straying themselves.

Other McGill studies confirmed differences in how men and women react to such threats. In one, attractive actors or actresses were brought in to flirt with study participants in a waiting room. Later, the participants were asked questions about their relationships, particularly how they would respond to a partner’s bad behavior, like being late and forgetting to call.

Men who had just been flirting were less forgiving of the hypothetical bad behavior, suggesting that the attractive actress had momentarily chipped away at their commitment. (Science of a Happy Marriage)

They don't mean the man suggested consciously that the attractive woman he was looking at or talking to was chipping away at his marriage, but that because he felt attracted to another woman, the chipping had begun, and he was more likely to assume his wife or partner was cheating or should at least be closely watched.

That's projection. I want to steal so I think you're stealing.

I don't know about Clapton. These lyrics may have nothing to do with his actual life, but if I were speaking to the person these lyrics make me think of today, I would say, "Well, if you were in love that deeply, if you were to the point where you felt you were on a pilgrim like a man seeking a goddess, then why didn't you find a way to say so?"

He'd probably say he did in many love letters, but for me, his love letters that were written while we were dating turned into statements like "You didn't do my laundry" over the years. (Sad coming from a man who could afford to pay someone to do his laundry but instead wanted to make his marriage about laundry.) And a man writing after the fact how much he loved you when you know damn well he was seeing another woman instead of working on his marriage is not worth the time it took him to think of the words for his sorrowful lyrics.

Nevertheless, in more vulnerable moments I am tempted at times to write the ex and say, "I'm sorry that we couldn't work out our marriage," but as I wrote in my poem "I See It Now," which is also posted on this blog, that would be a mistake. I wish we could have worked it out is not the same as saying I wish we were still married, but I don't think he would get that difference. And whatever peace I might get from saying it would be washed away by the craziness he'd act out afterward. So, I must forgive him from a distance.

Another friend of mine who's been divorced for longer than I have tells me that my analyzing my marriage five years after the divorce is probably a sign that I'm healing. She's convinced that's why I never have seriously entertained a relationship with another man, no matter what it looked like. I've got deep wounds.

If she read this post right now, however, she'd say, "Don't let him do that Jedi mind trick on you. Any sad lyrics that m*th*rf*ck*r's written are more about his need to control."