OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: My May 1963 Interview with Martin Luther King, Jr.

This thesis is being illustrated in Birmingham today. Only recently white residents were maintaining that "our Negroes were just fine" until Dr. King came to town. Some of them still hold that view. But a prominent white attorney with whom I talked said: "You just can't say that the Negroes are contented when they are willing to let their children go to jail."

And a white woman at whose car a rock had been thrown as she drove near the motel after the bombing expressed surprise: "I didn't know niggers were like that. I thought they just stood back."

Birmingham just now is in a state of shock, and one element in that shock is the sudden realization that Negroes are willing to fight for their rights.

The use of large numbers of children and youth in last week's demonstrations is cited by the Rev. Will D. Campbell, one of the most perceptive Protestant observers of the racial struggle, as a decisive factor in bringing the accord reached by Negro leaders and white businessmen. Not only did the children fill up the jails; they presented a grave problem for law enforcement officials, who were aware of the explosive reac-tion that would follow news that fire hoses and dogs had been turned loose on defenseless children. But was this strategy ethical?

In our Saturday interview Dr. King emphasized that the children and young people took part on their own volition, and that they had been trained in nonviolence and discipline. He further justified the step by contending that the experience would have educational value for children and youth "who have the right to responsible protest against a system which is as harmful to them as to their parents."

A headline in Monday's Birmingham News read: "City Pastors Deplore Racial Violence . . . Urge Peace." That sums up the position of most local pastors; they have indeed spoken out—for maintenance of the status quo and a return to "peace." Almost uniformly they have failed to conceive of their ministry as one which calls for proclamation of racial equality under both human and divine imperatives. Significantly, not one of the ministers quoted in the Monday newspaper story mentioned the question of racial justice.

There is a small nucleus of white persons in Birmingham, many of them related to the Alabama council on human relations, from which a different voice has been heard. But that voice has been largely unreflected in the local news media and so far as the people responsible for it know, it has not been reported in the national press. On April 14 nine Birmingham pastors—five white and four Negro—issued a public statement:

"We, an interracial group of Christian ministers speaking as individual citizens, wish to express our concern over . . . the ongoing problems in race relations in our city. . . . We would reaffirm the constitutional right of every American citizen to demonstrate peaceably for what he believes to be his just rights. We would further affirm the rightness of the aims of all who seek equal employment opportunities and equal access to all public facilities regardless of color or creed. These aims we believe to be rooted .. . in the historic Christian teaching of the oneness of humanity in Christ."

The statement concluded with a call to elected officials and "other persons of influence" to open communications with "responsible Negro leaders" and urged "all citizens to speak and act for justice honestly and without fear in their various spheres of activity." The ministers who signed: Paul E. Cosby, Joseph W. Ellwanger, Robert Brank Fulton, Harold D. Long, Louis L. Mitchell, Er-vin R. Oermann, J. E. Robinson, G. L. Terrell and H. C. Terrell.

Of different nature was the refusal of the executive committee of the city ministerial association to endorse the terms of the four-point agreement drawn up by the Negro leaders and the white businessmen. They had been asked, along with other civic groups, to do so.

At this writing the most pressing question in the complex situation is whether the state supreme court will decide in favor of the city government headed by incumbent Mayor Hanes or that headed by more moderate Mayor-Elect Boutwell. If the decision goes to Hanes, the crisis will continue, probably in aggravated form.

Another major question is whether Gov. Wallace's resentment at Pres. Kennedy's intervention will develop into a feud such as existed between the President and the governor of Mississippi during the racial crisis at that state's university.

Then there is the ever present possibility that violence will break out again—though the proximity of federal troops has served to ease the fears of Negroes and whites alike. Finally, there is the very real issue of whether in the end victory for the principle of nonviolence will be achieved in Birmingham.

Gains have indeed been won — at great price — by the Negro community. Its members are apparently willing to continue nonviolent resistance if the terms of the agreement are not carried out within the time limits set. As to that agreement, reliable voices in the white community indicate that the business representatives were sincere in their negotiations with the Negro leaders. It is still uncertain, however, whether the city government eventually seated will cooperate in implementation of the steps agreed on.

Of one thing there is little doubt. Dr. King is utterly correct in his belief that the segregationist is standing on the beach of history trying to hold back the wave of the future. The more determinedly the waves are held back now, the more resounding will be the crash when they finally over-sweep the sand castle which is the illusion of white supremacy.

STEPHEN C. ROSE

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