Civil Rights and Black Identity

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itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franch ise, aright and power which will be ever present, and will form awall of fire for his prote ction.

One ofth e invaluable compensations ofthe late Rebellionis the highly instructive disclosure it made ofthe true sourceof dang er to repub lican government. Whatever may be toler-ated in m onarchical and despotic governments, no republicis safe that tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of itscitizens equal rights and equal m eans to maintain them ...

The people [themselves] demand such a reconstructionas shall put an end to the present anarchical state of thingsin the late rebellious States,w here frightful mu rders a ndwholesale massacres are pe rpetrated in the very presence ofFederal soldiers. This horrible business they require shallcease. They want a reconstruction such as will protect loyalmen, black and w hite, in their persons and pro perty; such aone as will cause N orthern industry. Northern capital andNorthern civilization to fiow into the South, and make aman from New England as much at home in Carolina aselsewhere in the Republic. No Chinese wall can now betolerated. The South must be opened to the light of lawand liberty, and this session of Congress is relied upon toaccomplish this important work.

Th e plain, common-sense way of doing this work ... issimply to establish in the South oue law, one government,one ad ministration of justice, one condition to the exerciseof the elective franchise, for men of ail races and colors alike.This great m easure is sought as earnestly by loyal white menas by loyal blacks, and is needed ahke by hoth. Let soundpolitical prescience but take the place of an unreasoningprejudice, and this will be done.Volume 18. Number 110,pp. 761-765

SELF-RELIAIVCESeptember 1896

BY BOO KER T. W ASHING TON

The African-American spokesman and educator Booker T. IVash-ington argued that black education sfirst priority should be toempow er blacks with practical skills like those he taught a t Hisow n Tuskegee Institute. By leaming to efficiently manage theirown households and produce goods and services of use to the com-munity at large, he suggested, blacks would come to be appreciatedby their white neighbors as valuable ellow citizens.N othing else so soon brings about right relationsbetween the two races in the South as the industrialprogress ofthe negro. Friction betw een the races willpass away in proportion as the black man, by reason of hisskill, intelligence, and character, can produ ce som ething th atthe white man wants or respects in the commercial world.

This is [a] reason why at Tuskegee we push the industritraining. We find that as every year we put into a Southercommunity colored men who can start a brick-yard, a sawmia tin-shop, or a printing-office,men who produce somethinthat makes the white man partly dep enden t upon th e negrinstead of all the dependence being on the other side,change takes place in the relations ofth e races.

Let us go on for a few more years knitting our businesand industrial relations into those ofthe white man, till black man gets a mortgage on a white man's house that hcan foreclose at will. The white man on whose house thmortgage rests w ill not try to prevent tliat neg ro from votinwhen he goes to the polls. It is throug h th e dairy farm, thtruck garden, the trades, and commercial life, largely, thathe negro is to find his way to the enjoyment of all his rightWhether he will or not, a white man respects a negro whowns a two-story brick house ...

It is well to hear in mind that slavery taught the white mathat labor with the hands was something fit for the negronly, and something for the w hite man to come into contacwith just as little as possible. It is true that there was a largclass of poor white peopie who labored w ith the ha nds, buthey did it because they were not able to secure negroes twork for them; and these poor whites were constantly tryinto imitate the slave-holding class in escaping labor, and thetoo regarded it as anything but elevating. The negro in turnlooked dow n upon the poor whites with a certain contempbecause they had to work. The negro, it is to be borne imind, worked under constant protest, because he felt that hilabor was being unjustly re quired ... Labor with him was badge of degradation .

At Tuskegee we became convinced that the thing to dowas to make a careful systematic study ofthe condition andneeds ofth e South ... and to bend o ur efforts in the directionof meeting these needs... After fourteen years of experiencand ob servation, what is the result? C radually btit surely, wfind that all through the South the disposition to look uponlabor as a disgrace is on the wane, and the parents whothemselves sought to escape work are so anxious to givetheir children training in intelligent labor that every institution which gives trainin g in the handicrafi:s is crowde d, andmany (among them Tuskegee) have to refuse admission tohund reds of applicants ,.,

The social lines that were once sharply drawn betweenthose who lahored w ith the hand and those who did not aredisappearing. Those who formerly sought to escape labornow when they see that brains and skill rob labor of thetoil and drud gery once associated with it, instead of tryin gto avoid it are willing to pay to be taught how to engage init. The South is beginnin g to see labor raised up, dignifiedand beautified, and in this sees its salvation.


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THE "VEIL" OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAILAugust J89 7

BY W. E. B. DU BOISAugust 1963

BY MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

This essay helped introduce the Harvard-educated black sociolo-gist W . E. B. Du Bois to a national audience and went on tobecome the opening chapter of his classic Souls of Black Folk(1905). Du Bois argued that, given the opportunity to educatethemselves, American blacks would emerge from behind what hereferred to as their "veil"of self-conscious "differentness."B etween me and the other world there is ever anunasked question: unasked by some throug h feelingsof delicacy; by others t hro ug h the difficulty of rightlyframing it. All, nevertheless, fiutter roun d it. They approachme in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compas-sionately, and then, instead of saying directly. How does itfeel to be a problem? they say, 1 know an excellent coloredman in my town; or I fought at Mechanicsville; or. Do notthese Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these Ismile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer,as the occasion may require. To the real question. How doesit feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word ...

After the Egyptian and Ind ian, the Creek and Roman, theTeuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son,bo m with a veil, and gifted w ith second-sight in this Americanworld,a w orld which yields him no self-consciousness, butonly lets him see himself throug h the revelation of the otherworld. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness,this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes ofothers, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world thatlooks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels histwo-ness,an Am erican, a N egro; two souls, two tho ughts,two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in oiie darkbody, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being tornasunder. The history ofth e Am erican Neg ro is the history ofthis strife,this longing to attain self-conscious ma nho od, tomerge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merg-ing he wishes neither ofth e older selves to be lost. He doesnot wish to Africanize America, for America has too muchto teach the world and Africa; he does not wish to bleachhis Negro blood in a fiood of white Americanism, for hebelievesfoolishly, perhaps, but ferventlythat Negro bloodhas yet a message for the world. He simply wishes to makeit possible for a man to be both a Negro and an Americanwithout being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, withoutlosing the op portunity of self-development

This is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in thekingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation,and to husband and use his best powers.

King's amous "Letterfrom Birmingham Jail, "published inThe Atlantic as ''The Negro Is Your Brother,"was written iresponse to a public statement of concern an d caution issuedeight white religious leaders ofthe South. It stands as one oftclassic documents ofthe civil-rights movement.W hile confined here in the Birmingham city jail,I came across your recent statement calling ourpresent activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom,if ever, do 1 pause to answer criticism of my work and ideasIf I sought to answ er all ofth e criticisms that cross my desk,my secretaries would b e engaged in little else in the courseofth e day, and I would have no time for constructive work.But since I feel that you are men of genuine good willand your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like toanswer your statement in what I hope will be patient andreasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Bir-ming ham , since you have been infiuenced by the a rgum entof'outsiders coming in" ...

I am in Birm ingham becau se injustice is here I amcognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities andstates. 1 cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concernedabout what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhereis a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an ines-capable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment ofdestiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.Never again can we afford to live with the narro w, prov in-cial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside theUnited States can never be considered an outsider ...

We have waited for more than three hundred and fortyyears for our Cod-given and constitutional rights. The nationsof Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward thegoal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at alunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have neverfelt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." But whe nyou have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathersat will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; whenyou have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalizeand even kill your black brothe rs an d sisters with impunitywhen you see the vast majority of your twe nty million N egrobrothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in themidst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find yourtongue twisted and your speech stamm ering as you seek toexplain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go tothe public amusement park that has just been advertised on


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television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes whenshe is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, andsee the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form inher little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her littlepersonality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towardwhite peop le; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, "Daddy, why dowhite people treat colored people so mean?"; when you takea cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep nightafter night in the uncom fortable corners of your automobilebecause no m otel will accept you; when you are hum iliatedday in and day out by nagging signs reading "white' ' and

"colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger" and yourmiddle nam e becomes "boy'" (however old you are) and vourlast name becomes "John," and when your wife and motherare never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are har-ried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are aNegro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite kn ow ingwhat to expect next, and plagu ed with inner fears and outerresentments; when you are forever fighting a degeneratingsense of "nobodyness"then you will understand why wefind it difficult to wait The re comes a time w hen th e cup ofendurance runs over and men are no longer willing to beplunged into an abyss of injustice where they ex perience th ebleakness of corrod ing despair. I hope, sirs, you can unde r-stand our iegitimate and unavoidable impatience ,..

Y ou express a great deal of anxiety over our w illingnessto break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern.Since we so diligently urge people to obey the SupremeCourt's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the publicschools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us con-sciously breaking laws. One may well ask, "How can youadvocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" Theanswer is found in the fact that the re are two types of laws:there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. 1 would agreewith St. Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference be tween th e two? How doesone de termin e w hen a law is just or unjust? A just law is amaii-inade code tha t squ ares w ith the m oral law, or the lawof Go d. An unjust law is a code that is out of harm ony withthe moral law. To put it in th e term s of St. Thomas Aquinas,an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternaland natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality isjust. Any law that degra des hum an person ality is unjust. Allsegregation statutes are unjust because segregation distortsthe soul and damages the personality ...

Th ere a re some instances when a law is just on its faceand unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrestedFriday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now,there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requiresa permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to

preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protesthen it becom es unjust.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind ocivil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal oShadrach, Meshach, and Abedn ego to obey the laws of Nebuchad nezza r becau se a high er moral law was involved. It wapracticed superbly by the early Christians, who were w illinto face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of choppingblocks before subm itting to certain unjust laws ofthe RomaEmp ire. To a degre e, academic freedom is a reality todabecause Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

We can never forget that e verything Hitler did in Gemany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedomfighters did in Hu nga ry was "illegal." It was "illega l" to aidand comfort a Jew in Hitler's G ermany. But I am sure thaif 1 had lived in Germany du ring that t ime, 1 would havaided and comforted my Jewish b rothe rs even thoug h iwas illegal. If I lived in a Com munist co untry today wh erecertain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressedI believe I would openly advocate disobeying these antireligious laws ..

I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Bimingham , even if our motives are presently misunderstoodWe will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all ovethe n ation, because th e goal of America is freedom. A busedand sco rned tho ugh we may be, our destiny is tied up w iththe destiny of America. Before the Pilgrims land ed at Plymouth , we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson scratchedacross the pages of history the majestic word o fthe Declaration of Independ ence, we were here ... Ifthe inexpressiblecruelties of slavery could not stop us, the oppo sition w e nowface will surely fail. We will win our freedom because thesacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of Godare embodied in our echoing demands ,,.

Never before have I written a letter this longor shouldI say a book? I'm afraid that it is much too long to take y ourprecious time. I can assure you that it would have been muchshorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, butwhat else is there to do when you are alone for days in thedull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write longletters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?

If I have said any thing in this letter that is an und erstatement ofthe truth and is indicative of an un reasonable impatience, 1 beg you to forgive me. If I have said a nything in thiletter that is an ove rstatement oft he trLith and is indicativeof my having a patience that makes me patient with anythingless than brotherh ood, I beg Go d to forgive me.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherho od,MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.Volume 212, Number 2, pp. 78-88


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Civil Rights and Black Identity

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