Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Today is the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. There are few works that are more satisfying to reread. You can find the full version here.

Why satisfying? Because it is a very beautiful letter, full of captivating phrasings and simple, elegant language. It also offers a devastating and concrete account of what it was like to be a Black person in this country, especially in the South in 1963. The famous paragraph that begins with why Black people are no longer willing to "wait," owing to the prejudices and everyday indignities they have so long endured, remains a mini-lesson in great writing that also has the rhetorical power to move people to action.

When he wrote this letter, Dr. King was responding to 8 so-called moderate clergyman (including one Rabbi) who had written a "Call for Unity" which somehow found space to praise the harsh tactics of the local police but offered no affirmation of the non-violent and dignified conduct of the Black demonstrators themselves. Here is the gist of their statement:

"However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely. We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for honest and open negotiation in our area. And we believe this kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experience of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its accomplishment. Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions", we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham. We commend the community as a whole, and the local news media and law enforcement officials in particular, on the calm manner in which these demonstrations have been handled. We urge the public to continue to show restraint should the demonstrations continue, and the law enforcement officials to remain calm and continue to protect our city from violence. 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."

And here is Dr. King's response to the failure of the clergymen to recognize and affirm the Black protesters:

"I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, courageously and with a majestic sense of purpose facing jeering and hostile mobs and the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two year old woman of Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with ungrammatical profundity, 'My feets is tried but my soul is rested.' They will be young high school and college students, young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience's sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American Dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage."

The Letter is ultimately satisfying, because Dr. King proved to be so prescient in his Letter. Fifty years later most of us now recognize these freedom fighters to be the true patriots of this period. It is they we turn to for lessons on leadership. It is they we remember for their courage and forbearance. It is they whom we celebrate 50 years later. The Letter from a Birmingham Jail has become part of our democratic heritage. It is a reminder that in a dark time there are people who rose up and did, in fact, live out the true meaning of the American creed.

Facts on Immigration Today

Thanks to the Center for American Progress, we have at our disposal a broad array of well founded facts that should help us in making thoughtful and reasonable decisions about Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Here are a few of the highlights from an article by Ann Garcia on the Center's website. You can read the full article here.

As of 2011, there were about 40 million foreign-born residents in the United States. This includes 15 million naturalized citizens, 13 million permanent  residents, and 11 million undocumented. The percentage of foreign-born people in the U.S. is now 13%, less than the peak of 14.8% in 1890, but still really substantial. In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the percentage of foreign-born people.

Almost a million of these 40 million foreign-born, identify as gay or transgender. About 68% have a high school diploma or equivalent, which is less than the native-born population, but 11% have master's degrees, professional degrees or doctorates compared to 10% of the native-born. Of the foreign-born, 52% own homes compared to 67% of the native-born.

Regarding the undocumented specifically, people from Mexico account for 59% of the 11 million, with 6% from El Salvador, 5% from Guatemala, 3% from Honduras, and 2% from China and the Philippines.

Here is a striking and important fact. Of the 11 million undocumented, 63% have been living in the U.S. for 10 years or longer.

And here's another fascinating claim regarding the economic benefits of embracing the 11 million undocumented. If they were given a path to citizenship, over the next 10 years the stimulus to the U.S. economy could easily exceed 1.1 trillion dollars.

The overall point, of course, is that immigration reform is good for everyone, the undocumented and those who are already citizens of the U.S. It stands to benefit us economically, educationally, culturally, and politically. It is a cause whose time has come. It is now just a matter of mustering the will to make it happen.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 9th, students, faculty, and staff from Wagner College will hold a press conference urging the U.S. Congress and the New York State legislature to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. We hope to have a City Council Member and a New York State Assemblyman in attendance. In any case we will be asking everyone to support the petition below that was drafted by Wagner student and community activist Kevin Ferreira. We ask that others who read this also reach out to their legislators to gain support for a reform whose time truly has come.

If you want to sign the petition, please go here: http://tiny.cc/wagnerCIR 

To:

Sen. Charles Schumer

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

Representative Michael Grimm

State Senator Diane Savino

State Senator Andrew Lanza

Assemblyman Matthew Titone

Assemblyman Michael Cusick

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis

Assemblyman Joseph Borelli

We, faculty, students and staff of Wagner College, join countless others in our surrounding Staten Island, New York and American communities in calling for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and passage of the New York State DREAM Act. In the spirit of Wagner College’s commitment to service, leadership and citizenship we write to you to defend family unity, support economic growth, promote cultural diversity and uphold equal rights for all people.

Currently, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented people in the United States. These individuals and families face unprecedented struggles, even as they continue to contribute enormously to our country’s wealth and well-being. In the last two years, over 200,000 parents of US-born children have been deported, tragically upending thousands of families. On the job, undocumented immigrants face unsafe work conditions and receive unfair and insubstantial wages that prevent them from accessing the decent health care and adequate housing they need to sustain their families. Despite facing these hardships, a majority of undocumented immigrants pay taxes, and in 2010, contributed over 11.2 billion dollars to state and local governments. We applaud the hard work that immigrants do in our communities and in our economies, and in recognizing these hardships and these contributions we ask that Congress, in return, support Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Reform must include a pathway to citizenship that will enable every person in our country the ability to participate freely in our democratic society. Such a pathway must be feasible and fair and not overly burdensome with fees and requirements that disqualify many undocumented individuals.

Reform must support family unity, without discrimination. Families have long been a core institution of American society, promoting social stability, fostering economic independence, and inculcating positive values. Keeping families together is therefore fundamental and must stand as an inviolable principle that supports a family-based immigration system.

Reform must immediately ensure that undocumented youth who were brought to this country as children have equal access to a college education. As members of an institution of higher education that has transformed countless lives, we affirm the priceless value of higher learning and the role it has played in helping millions to achieve the American DREAM and build a stronger society. Undocumented youth must have the same opportunity as everyone else to pursue that DREAM, not only for themselves but also to build a more self-reliant and productive country for the benefit of all. We believe that it is of the utmost urgency to recognize those undocumented youth who do not have equal access to higher education and pass the New York State Dream Act. While calling on the federal government to address immigration we recognize that our state can take immediate action by creating equal opportunity and equal access to college in our state for undocumented youth who were brought here in their childhood. We know that the New York State DREAM Act helps the entire business community in Staten Island and in New York. We agree that access to financial aid, which is essential to managing the hefty price of that accompanies a higher education in today’s society, is a central part

of the DREAM Act.

Reform must ensure that the legal immigration system is sufficiently robust to meet the needs of the American economy, does not disadvantage native-born workers, and does not encourage waves of unauthorized immigration when job demand is high. It is essential therefore that reform protect the rights of all workers.

A central tenet of the reform must ensure the right to due process, a right too often denied our immigrants. The absence of due process in dealing with the nation’s undocumented is wholly against this country’s founding principles. The traditions of our justice-oriented democracy must restore those intrinsic rights that guard our nation’s people against unwarranted and unjust confinement and detention, or any practice that strips individuals of their right to full, unfettered due process.

To deny immigrants access to such basic and fundamental rights as the pursuit of happiness is to disregard the contributions that the undocumented have repeatedly made to their communities. The comprehensive immigration reform that is now long overdue must right the wrongs that have been perpetrated against our undocumented community. Comprehensive Immigration Reform is an investment in our country’s democratic system, economy, and society.

We, the undersigned, hereby affirm that our current immigration system is tragically flawed and broken, and urge your support for the New York State DREAM Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stephen Preskill

Kevin Ferreira

Dr. Lori Weintrob

Julia Zenker

Dr. Karen DeMoss

Patti McCaffrey

Dr. Margarita Sanchez

Samantha Siegel

Kevin Farrell

Sitting In

Today, Karen and I were teaching about Jonathan Kozol and his decision to use a Langston Hughes poem with his 4th graders that was against school district rules when we took off on a tangent about the sit-ins that occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960. That day, at about 4:30 pm, four Black college students defied racial segregation laws by sitting down at a Woolworth's lunch counter (Blacks could stand up at an adjacent snack bar) and refused to get up when they were denied service. These men, all freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, remained in their seats until the store closed unusually early. The next day, about 20 additional students joined the original 4 and the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement was launched, leading to the creation of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and the rise of such leaders as John Lewis, Diane Nash, Julian Bond, Marion Berry, and many others.

But what hit me in the moment that we turned to these sit-ins had to do with this question of how to decide what is right and how to act in light of that decision. When we asked students about Kozol's decision to consciously use a poem that was not part of the 4th grade curriculum, some said he did a wrong thing but for the right reasons. Others commented that it might have been against the rules, but it was still the right thing to do. I then challenged them and myself to put ourselves in the place of the four students from A&T. What would we do and why? And I knew, I just knew, that when I was a college student, I would not have done the right thing. I would have been too scared to sit-in. I knew the right thing was to defy the law and sit-in, if for no other reason than to uphold equality and justice, to do what needs to be done to create a decent society where no innocent person is forced to suffer public humiliation. But I would have lacked the guts to follow through on what I believed.

Imagine the courage of those men at that moment. There was a good chance they would be taunted, harassed, and even assaulted. And it was extremely likely that all the powers of the State would not support the protesters, but would back up the segregationists. It was a very risky thing to challenge segregation in those days. It could easily get you killed. So where did these men and so many others like them, a few Whites to be sure, but the vast majority Black, find the gumption, the sheer grit to do this?

My best guess is that they were tired in the same way that Rosa Parks was tired, not physically tired, as she is so often claimed to have been, but tired of being pushed around, tired of being constantly diminished, tired of being trampled on, tired of injustice. I am guessing, for I don't really know personally, that if you get pushed around enough, there is a point at which you just won't take it any more, even at risk of death. That is certainly part of what happened in the 1950s and 1960s when Black people, with very little support from non-Blacks, launched the Civil Rights Movement.

Incidentally, On July 25, 1960, a little less than 6 months after the original sit-ins, the Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter quietly began to serve Blacks, even when they were sitting down.

Civic Professionalism Again

Yesterday's post was about civic professionalism, more or less as philosopher William Sullivan has delineated the concept in his book Work and Integrity. Today, I return to Sullivan with what I would say are a few key quotes from this book.

"The university is chartered by the larger society to cultivate the life of the mind for the public good" (Sullivan, 2004, p. 225).

"Professional occupations create recognized opportunities for individuals to make something of their talents and capacities. On the other hand, this is only possible through personal commitment to the disciplines of a community of practice. At its best, professional life enables individual freedom to find fulfillment as it advances the well-being of the larger society" (p. 284).

"...what makes one free and renders life worth living is finally neither satisfying one's desires nor accomplishing one's purposes, valuable as these are, but instead learning to act with the good of the whole in view, building a life act by act, happy if each deed, as far as circumstances allow, contributes to the general welfare" (p. 290).

So what's striking about all of these quotes? That professionals don't get to just develop their abilities as fully as possible; they also have a responsibility to give back, to promote the general welfare, to advance the public good. Indeed, as Sullivan would have it, we as a society invest in these professionals with an expectation that there will be a return on our investment, not just in increased riches, but also in a better life for all.

To the extent that Sullivan is right, colleges and universities should pay more attention to what they are doing to ensure that part of the education of professionals is to be aware of their responsibility to give back and to learn strategies for how best to do this, given that one's acquired expertise is owed, at least in part, to a public investment.