MLK Day
I didn't write anything here on Martin Luther King Day because I was not near a computer. I wish that I could say I was doing something for the common good, but I was not. I spent much of it in a funk, thinking a lot, disappointed in myself for not having taken the initiative to do something tangible with my day. I've been using my newness to this region (and Boise's not-so-political vibe) as an excuse for inaction, for passively reading and thinking and talking and never doing anything toward, well, much of anything.
So today I re-read some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s writings, including Letter from Birmingham Jail. It's one that everyone ought to read, and re-read. The case that he makes for direct action - for doing, for acting, not just talking - is wholly compelling.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
(Read the entire letter here.)