As the nation celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday today, January 15, I predict a new spattering of debates over the legacy of the influential Baptist minister. King gathered a bandied crowd of admirers — and detractors — across the political spectrum in his life and death. Conservative champion Ronald Reagan signed MLK Day into being in 1983. Throughout MLK’s life, tensions remained between the Black Panthers and himself, as the extremist methods of the former were often contrasted with the nonviolence of the latter. (I know very little about the battle regarding MLK’s licentious endeavors, but I suppose we will all know more when the FBI releases further evidence in 2027.)

In the midst of such debates, however, I invite you to turn your attention to MLK’s work, for that we have in confidence. In particular, I believe the best distillation of MLK’s thought resides in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (April 16, 1963). King penned the famous document, as its title suggests, from within the Birmingham jail in Alabama. Local authorities held King there after they arrested him and his companions for leading demonstrations in the area.

While many know the political context of King’s letter, few know its direct prompt. The jailed minister’s letter was itself response to a previous open letter, “A Call to Unity,” that was published by eight Alabamian church leaders on Good Friday — April 12, 1963. The co-signers of “A Call to Unity” were an ecumenical cohort: an Episcopalian bishop, a Reformed rabbi, a Roman Catholic bishop, and a Baptist pastor were among its ranks.

In the letter, the clergymen call for King’s abstention from civil-rights demonstrations in the name of law and order:

We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense

“A Call to Unity” stemmed from an earlier letter sent out by the Alabama clergyman, titled “An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense,” which had been released in January earlier that year. The “Law and Order” letter denounced the violence and discord that followed the demonstrations led by King and his followers. While the clergymen believed in King’s mission, they questioned his means. The greatest sticking point for the concerned church leaders was King’s defiance of the court. The churchmen argued “that laws may be tested in courts or changed by legislatures, but not ignored by whims of individuals,” and “that constitutions may be amended or judges impeached by proper action, but our American way of life depends upon obedience to the decisions of courts of competent jurisdiction in the meantime.” 

It was to these qualms that King responded in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” And so, his letter was both political and theological. As a pastor himself, King made a case for his actions through the lens of religiously informed legal theory. Here is an excerpt:

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law 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. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. . . .

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

In one masterful swoop, MLK quotes from leading figures in the theological traditions of his opponents: St. Thomas Aquinas (Catholic), Martin Buber (Jewish), and Paul Tillich (Protestant). The thesis of the letter, “an unjust law is not law at all,” derives from St. Augustine, a Father of the Church. Augustine by no means advocates anarchy or treating a nation’s laws like a buffet line — picking and choosing between them — but rather he calls both leaders and citizens to a serious commitment to justice.

MLK’s letter describes a disposition of protestation that is largely foreign to us today. Ultimately, MLK calls upon his followers to be saints — even martyrs. “One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.” This purest form of civil disobedience demands awe. It is the kind of nobility displayed by Franz Jägerstätter, who conscientiously objected to serving the Third Reich and was consequently executed by the regime. (I cannot recommend enough Terrence Malick’s 2019 A Hidden Life, which follows Jägerstätter’s martyrdom.)

Ultimately, in his letter, MLK taps into the tree of American spirit — conscientious objection to tyranny — which has roots in the greatest minds of old. Let us keep it watered still.