1. It's 1963. You're stuck in a place that you can't leave.
2. You're stuck there because you took Democracy's Moral High Ground... but lacked the legal standing to avoid-
3. -being stuck in a place that you can't leave.
4. You are presently deprived of 2 of America's guaranteed Three American Basics: liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In short, you are a Black American Citizen of the United States of America- and you're in jail.
Again.

But you have a pen.
You have paper upon which to write.
And you have an educated, informed, inspired and insightful mind.
You also have personal history that has earned you the gravitas to speak out. And so, you do. But not against your historical oppressors, not against the culture that spawns callow, casual observers who slow down to gawk at the awful, human messiness. Nope. You take it to the very folks who share your profession/calling. You call out your own brethren clergy, exposing to all of America their complacency/complicity in the status quo.

And by calling them out, you also find a way to call out a Nation, because if clergy/ground-level leadership can't examine itself, why would Everyday Americans seek to do so?

Leadership by example.

By their deeds, ye shall know them (Matthew 7: 16-17).

________________________


This will probably take only 10 minutes of your time to read, but it is one of the most important, insightful treatises that has ever been shared with America since Her inception. Written more than a half-century ago, it has resonance in today's moments, as well.

Let us never be misinformed/misled: Martin was reviled and abjectly hated in his lifetime. He was considered a subversive, a radical. FBI Director Hoover called him, “the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of Communism, the Negro and national security.” And still, despite the institutionalized efforts to silence/marginalize him, his words swept the globe... and enshrined his name in the pantheon of History's great thought leaders/orators.


He fought every day for poor, silent, oppressed People, until a sniper's bullet cut him down before he reached the age of 40... and made him the unsilenced martyr for a cause that persists in a nation that professes itself to be something it has still not yet become.

It's now 2023.
60... SIXTY years later.
And still, the conditions that existed when 'Marty wrote his note' persist.

Take the 10 minutes required to read this.
It's one of the most important things ever written about and for Our Country.
America lived with a Gift in her midst for almost 40 years.
Perhaps some day, She'll learn to appreciate the rest of the riches that have been bestowed upon Her.


A Letter From Birmingham Jail



Happy "MLK Day," MF's.
What?