Dr. King’s Simple Appeal: “Do not Delay, or Deny, Justice” – (To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice…)

Excerpted from ALABAMA CLERGYMEN’S LETTER TO DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
April 12, 1963
We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.
Signed by Eight Clergymen, across denominations/religions

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On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it is always difficult to know which quote or excerpt of his speeches or writings to pay the most attention to.  I Have a Dream was a masterpiece, in every sense of the word.  I love the poignancy and prophetic tone of his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered just before his far too untimely death.  I think his “Because I didn’t sneeze” riff in that speech is just beyond brilliant.

But if you make me choose one item to read, it would be The Letter from Birmingham Jail.  It captures the entire drama in one back-and-forth between those who have good intentions toward needed change (fellow clergymen) and those who need the benefits of that change, represented by Dr. King and his leadership.  Their utter lack of understanding of why the change must come “now” — “why we can’t wait” – shines clearly through in their letter to Dr. King.

Dr. King lets them know why they are not quite grasping the depth and the severity of the situation:  “I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.”

I am white.  I am male.  I have no personal understanding of the sense of “nobodiness” that a black person felt for decade after decade after decade in this country.  But Dr. King comes really close to helping me understand.

A key line is his letter is this:

We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

Here (from Wikipedia) is a similar sentiment, from Warren Burger, written some seven years after Dr. King’s letter:

As Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger noted: “A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society: that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud and over-reaching; that people come to believe the law – in the larger sense – cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work, and on the public streets.”

But the idea goes back to the year 1215, and that famous foundational document, the Magna Carta.  Here is the key excerpt:

TO ALL FREE MEN OF OUR KINGDOM we have also granted, for us and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs:
…To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
IT IS ACCORDINGLY OUR WISH AND COMMAND that the English Church shall be free, and that men in our kingdom shall have and keep all these liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably in their fulness and entirety for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things and all places for ever.

The Magna Carta

So, for this year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here’s a key passage excerpted from The Letter From Birmingham Jail.

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL

April 16, 1963
MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.