M.L.K. Wrote a Love Letter to a Nation Torn by Hate. Sound Familiar?

Great waves of cruelty pound us. Government officials use the law to attack the weak and vulnerable. Out of fear or indifference, citizens turn a blind eye to suffering and injustice.

These were the conditions the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described in the letter he wrote from a Birmingham, Ala., jail cell. First published in May 1963, the letter spread widely, no small feat for a nearly 7,000-word, philosophy-filled essay in the days before electronic media. Newspapers and magazines reprinted it, and churches handed out copies to worshipers.

The letter struck a chord because, more than anything else, it was a love letter — a love letter written for a nation torn by hate. Dr. King’s message was rooted in the belief that love had the power to overcome cruelty, the power even to reform unjust systems and laws. His protests in Birmingham were intended not simply to condemn the city’s segregation laws but also to call Americans to action.

Dr. King believed most government leaders and ordinary Americans would choose mercy over meanness if they saw the meanness for themselves. It was a belief inspired by his Christian faith. That’s why he went to jail and why he asked hundreds of others to follow him there. And indeed, when Americans subsequently saw peaceful protesters thrashed by water cannons, attacked by police dogs and loaded in police wagons, the nation’s mood shifted, and politicians responded.

Today, as the Trump administration deports people without due process, cuts funding for education and science, fires federal workers by the thousands, disrupts global alliances and punishes perceived enemies, cruelty prevails. At the same time, President Trump’s approval ratings are falling.

For those who disapprove of his tactics, who prefer mercy for the marginalized and who wish to fight back but don’t know how, Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” shows the way.