the ‘whites only’ and ‘no coloreds’ signs in shops, the segregated restaurants, and
the deliberate negligence of the police in investigating 18 bombings of black homes
and churches over the previous six years. With regard to the first step, there was
little doubt that Birmingham had one of the worst records on civil rights in the
South.
The next step was to negotiate before engaging in civil disobedience. There were
attempts to get the shopkeepers to remove their signs. Promises were made but not
honoured. A mayoral election in March 1963 between the reactionary Bull Connor
and moderate – but still segregationist – Albert Boutwell resulted in the latter’s
victory, but because the three-man commission that had run Birmingham, and
included Connor, refused to stand down, there was no movement on removal of
discrimination. Negotiation had failed. The next step was ‘self-purification’. This
must be distinguished from what we identified as the introversion that sometimes
characterises conscientious refusal. The aim of self-purification is to ascertain
whether the protestors will be able to endure violence without reacting violently.
To this end, workshops on non-violent protest were held.
Finally, we come to the act of civil disobedience. King argues that one of the
aims of civil disobedience is to ‘create such a crisis and establish such creative tension
that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront
the issue’ (1991: 71). The new Mayor Boutwell might be persuaded that resistance
to desegregation was futile. It could be argued – and King was aware of this – that
the effectiveness of civil disobedience rests on the existence of a violent alternative
to it. Those engaged in civil disobedience need not intend to communicate this
message for this message to be communicated through their actions. In 1963 the
widely perceived ‘alternative’ to Martin Luther King was Malcolm X’s Muslim
movement. Indeed King cites this movement in his Letter, arguing that if civil rights
activists are dismissed as ‘rabble rousers’ and ‘outside agitators’ then millions of
blacks ‘out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black
nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial
nightmare’ (1991: 77).
Responding to the question of how it is possible to obey some laws but disobey
others, King argues that there are just laws and unjust laws:
an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any
law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human
personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation
distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense
of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.
(King, 1991: 73)
In expanding on this distinction King cites the Christian ‘church fathers’
Augustine (354–430) and Aquinas (1225–74), Jewish philosopher Martin Buber
(1878–1965) and Protestant theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965). It may appear
that King is appealing to a particular moral conception, drawn from Judaism and
Christianity, rather than a politicalmorality. Three points should be made. First,
so long as the underlying appeal extends beyond your own particular conception
of what is ultimately valuable, which for King is rooted in Christian teaching, then
enlisting Christian (and Jewish) thinkers – Augustine, Aquinas, Buber, Tillich – is
legitimate. In effect, King is saying ‘I am a Christian, but you do not have to be a440 Part 4 Contemporary ideas