On behalf of President Crawford —

As we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I look across the national and international landscape and it is notable how relevant the teachings in Dr. King’s letter from a Birmingham jail, written April 16, 1963, remain today.  The letter written while Dr. King was incarcerated in a Birmingham jail for participating in nonviolent protests against segregation in the Alabama city was in response to a public statement of concern and critique released by eight white southern religious leaders.  You might say, what does a letter written in 1963, about racial segregation in the south have to do with me today?  It is a fair question.

Although, we do not live within the milieu of searing segregation, the context in which Dr. King’s letter was written, it is a regrettable statement of fact 60 years later the fundamental issue of the letter continues to challenge humankind as individuals, communities, as a nation, and globally.  Likewise, his prescription that the healing and all-encompassing power of love was the sole cure to the malady of the day, remains true for us.  Neither prescriptive laws, good intentions, nor funded social programs can remedy the scourge that afflicts our time and place.

The eradication of government-enforced racial segregation, the heartless and often violent reality of those times, which inflicted degradation and humiliation upon Black Americans was certainly at the center of the civil rights movement.  However, it is too simplistic to say Dr. King’s letter is merely about racism, as he stated, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.”   Dr. King’s response to the criticism of these clergymen is timeless.  He said, “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  We do not live in separate lanes of existence.  Dr. King’s letter from a Birmingham jail is a passionate plea then, and now, beseeching our embrace of the universality of a shared common humanity.   He masterfully implores us to see the corrosiveness of inhumanity.  His words tell us no matter how one looks, how one worships, or who and how one loves, everyone is worthy of respect and benevolence.  He invites us to the abiding truth of the divine tapestry of human connectedness.

A crucial point of the letter, arguably the most important, is Dr. King’s exhortation for immediate and individual action to combat injustice.  He speaks of the “strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.”  His point that time is “neutral” and can be used for good or for ill is a lesson we all must take to heart and act accordingly or face the consequence.  History has shown us more harm comes from good people failing to act than from people of ill will acting destructively.  As Dr. King states, “human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God.  We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”  It is people, women and men, who make change in society.

If you have not read the letter, I urge you to do so, or if you have read it, I recommend it for reconsideration.  If you do so, do not read/reread the letter from the context of the 1960s, but as an examination of conscience pertaining to the context in which we now live – homelessness, women’s rights/abuse, environmental degradation, violent political discourse, gun violence, and LGBTQ+ fear mongering.  This listing could go for pages, the point is to identify where you can make a difference, small or large, and follow Dr. King’s exhortation to take immediate and constructive action.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s commitment to our common humanity resides at the core of the mission of Felician University to educate and shape citizen leaders of action, who take the enduring purpose of this institution, to promote a love for learning, a desire for God, self-knowledge, service to others, and respect for all creation into their communities to make the Earth a better place for all of us.

We all must do our part!

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