The Term: A Word for the Campus By the Campus

By Timothy S. Moore

In working with our students and engaging with academic communities, we all explore ways to improve our work, expand our perspectives, and learn from others who similarly strive to connect faith to the campus and the larger world beyond in concrete and vital ways. Often central to our ministry with the campus are moments of worship. Whether at weekly services or occasional opportunities, moments of worship provide chances to link the heart of our faith with the hearts of the lives connected to our campuses. It is this critical moment of contact that prompted the creation of this collegiate ministry resource, The Term: A Word for the Campus by the Campus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781945935046

Book preview

Correspondence

The Transformative Exchange of Letters between White Moderates and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Ron Robinson—Wofford College

On April 12, 1963, a group of eight Alabama clergy published an open letter in Birmingham, AL newspapers. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s response to that letter has become one of the most significant documents in the history of the United States of America. ¹

History has not been kind to the eight clergy. While there may be reasons for that, it is important to recognize that they were known as compassionate people whose ethical and religious grounding made them supporters of desegregation. Included in their ranks were two Methodist bishops, a rabbi, priests, and pastors. It is incorrect to conclude these men were bigots or segregationists. They were leaders in Birmingham and the surrounding area, and they had access to people in power who could make things happen. Furthermore, they were willing to take stands for issues, and their positions found them frequently at odds with many of their congregants. Four months earlier, these same clergy were deeply concerned about the potential for violence that might occur in response to Alabama Governor George Wallace’s strident segregationist rhetoric. They signed a letter imploring him to stop.

In this century, several books by scholars and by the children of the clergymen have been published, and they portray them as nuanced people who could be numbered among the Responsible citizens [who] have undertaken to work on various problems which cause racial friction and unrest, which they noted in their letter.² Nevertheless, the letter they sent evoked a response that impacted and continues to impact American society as few letters have.

Every other year, I teach an undergraduate class entitled, Religion in the American South. Frequently I offer an alternative spring break trip that is promoted as a Civil Rights Tour of The South. Both in the class and during the tour we read the correspondence between the white clergy and Dr. King. We read the letters aloud, and we read them on different days. We let each letter linger and we try, as best we can, to enter the mind and heart of the writers. The conversations and discussions are usually introspective, occasionally confrontational, and always meaningful. When paired together, these two letters often become an experience of transformational learning.

In their letter, the eight clergy pointed out that,

[T]here had been some evidence of increased forbearance and a willingness to face facts. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on various problems which cause racial friction and unrest. In Birmingham, recent public events have given indication that we all have opportunity for a new constructive and realistic approach to racial problems.³

These clergy were concerned about violence, and they thought the matter would best be addressed in the courts.

Things were moving quickly—too quickly to their thinking: 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.They went on,

We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham….

We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.⁴

Dr. King responded with lines that have continued to resonate across more than half a century.⁵ First, though his presence in Birmingham may have been unwelcomed by some, he rejected the notion of his being an outside agitator. Pointing to the interrelatedness of all people, he insisted that justice everywhere is threatened when injustice exists anywhere.

Calling their concept of peace a negative peace, Dr. King challenged the clergy by writing of his disappointment in their devotion to order over justice, which he termed positive peace. He confronted the paternalism of their attempt to set a more convenient timetable for the freedom of others.

Finally, Dr. King closed his counter-argument by noting that oppressors never voluntarily give freedom to the oppressed. For King, the delay of justice was synonymous with the denial of justice.

After we read the letters, we spend time discussing topics like white moderates, moderates in general, contemporary apathy, negative peace and positive peace, and the necessity of activism. The pedagogical opportunities the letters offer are immense.

On occasion, I have the opportunity to tell a personal narrative about how the letters have impacted me over time. I am a Southerner. I grew up in the South and, as a youngster, I was aware in at least a cursory way of the unrest going on because of race. I was a first-grader 1963. My parents were educated, they were dedicated United Methodists—Methodists, as we were in those days—and my formation was in a family and church context whose leanings were toward desegregation and integration. My parents were future-oriented; they enrolled me in Catholic school as a kindergartener because it was the only desegregated school in our town. I remember my dad frequently saying those who remembered the good ol’ days had poor memories. They had their faults and prejudices, but there was a moderate social conscience underneath. Moderate.

There were a few African Americans in our home on an occasional basis. Most were friends or family of the woman who worked in our home Monday through Friday. Her role was not unlike the role of Aibileen Clark portrayed by Viola Davis in the film, The Help. My family was not wealthy; we were comfortable and stable. My mother was a teacher, and my father worked for the Department of Transportation. They knew the world was changing and that change was needed. My memories are of their sympathies with some of the ideas championed by Dr. King, while at the same time they, like the white clergy, were fearful of the potential for violence. They spoke of wanting peace, and it was clear to me that they desired what I would now call negative peace. As I said earlier, they were moderates. I think I grew up with a moderate social conscience as well, although I occasionally pushed my advocacy beyond the levels of my parents’ advocacy.

During my college years, I had the opportunity to spend time around two of the men to whom Dr. King addressed his letter. I worked at Lake Junaluska Assembly, the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s retreat center located in the North Carolina mountains. In fact, that is where my family lived, and that, no doubt, had an impact upon the formation of my own theological and social sensibilities. On several occasions I was a driver for Bishop Nolan Harmon, then an octogenarian. He had been bishop of the Atlanta area and, for a short term (1961–64), also presided over the North Alabama Conference. That is why he was a signatory and recipient of the letters.

I once asked Bishop Harmon about Dr. King’s letter. He replied that he never received a personal letter from Dr. King. Rather, the King letter was sent to a newspaper. Of course, the letter the eight clergy wrote was also an open letter sent to a newspaper. It was not until much later that he (Bishop Harmon) learned that copies of the King letter were being printed and distributed. Bishop Harmon addressed this in his autobiography, which was published about three years after our conversation. There he stated that the letter made Dr. King famous across the nation, but it did not help in Birmingham.

Bishop Paul Hardin was someone I saw more frequently. He encouraged me to attend Wofford College, from which I graduated and where I now am chaplain and professor of religion. Bishop Hardin attended Wofford himself and his son had been president in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was as a junior at Wofford, in a class on Black Theology and Ethics, that I first read Letter from Birmingham Jail. Bishop Hardin encouraged me toward ministry and, when I received my first parish assignment as a divinity student, it was he who announced the news to everyone in a local restaurant.

For twelve years of his career (1960–1972) he was bishop of South Carolina. From 1961 to 1964, he also served as bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference after the incumbent bishop of the conference died. It was in that capacity that he had signed the open letter. He seemed to me to move with the times—even lead the times. I never directly asked Bishop Hardin about the letter, but I knew his track record. From 1968 through 1972, Bishop Hardin was concurrently the bishop of both the South Carolina Conferences (1785) and the South Carolina Conference (1866). The latter was a missionary conference created for African Americans after the Civil War. So, for more than one hundred years, the state had two annual conferences—one was black and the other was white—and they were two separate entities. Bishop Hardin was able to shepherd the two conferences to merger; completing the merger was one of his last acts as bishop. In that regard he was, it is evident, the right person for the times.