How Did Martin Luther King Jr Appeal To The Southern Church

On April 12, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was forcefully arrested for violating Birmingham law concerning parades. For the preceding week, he and hundreds of other demonstrators had been peacefully protesting the humiliating segregation laws that were everywhere in Alabama and across the South. These protests involved sitting in “whites only” restaurants, riding on “whites only” buses, and picketing for equality. These peaceful, passive actions were met with force and violence by police and white citizens of Birmingham, who wished to maintain the laws of segregation. Throughout their demonstrations, 8 white clergymen of the South, including rabbis, pastors, and priests, had been calling for Black Southerners to reject King and the Civil

He makes an especially compelling appeal when he compares the contemporary Southern church to the church of the early Christians. Dr. King says, “There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period that the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed...Wherever the early Christians entered a town, the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’” Here, Dr. King paints an image of early Christians that shows them to be passionate challengers of the status quo, placing greater importance on morality and their message than on the stability of society. In this passage, he compares the labels he has been branded with by his opposition to the convictions placed upon early Christians - “disturbers of the peace, outside agitators.” This comparison begins to plant the seeds of doubt in his audience’s minds. Could they really be opposers of morality, like those that challenged the early Christians they so admired? King goes on to say, “Things are different now. The contemporary church...is so often the arch supporter of the status quo.” King now confirms the fears he had planted - the contemporary church is no different now from those heathens who had rejected the early Christians. In this passage, through his dual comparisons between the Civil Rights Movement and the early Christians vs. the contemporary church and the persecutors of early Christians, King shows that the contemporary church was now going against its own morality and its very core to maintain the status quo. King delivers the final blow through this passage: “But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an