Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from the
Birmingham City Jail
You are
exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action
seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that 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.
I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather
shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached
against violent tension, but there is a type of constructivei nonviolent tension that 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
bondageii of myths and half‐truths to the unfetterediii realm of creative analysis and objective appraisaliv, we
must see the need of having nonviolent gadfliesv 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. So
the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis‐packed that it will inevitably open the door to
negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland
been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue…
We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to
make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pendingvi national elegyvii into a creative psalmviii of
brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock
of human dignity.
