The Spirit of Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- I have been to many dramatic and stirring places in the world, but I have never been so moved as I was during my visit to Birmingham, Alabama last week. The power of history and the full force of humanity sometimes converge during a single serendipitous event or encounter, as I experienced on April 15 and 16 in this city. By coincidence, those were the exact days, 47 years ago, that Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote and sent his now famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," during his brief incarceration there for leading peaceful protest marches against that city's harsh segregation and discrimination against black citizens.

That letter captured the high and low points of the heroic modern American struggle for the civil rights of black Americans. It reflected the most vicious white violence and racism against blacks (including lynchings, terror bombings, and using fire hoses and police dogs against children); it articulated elements of a courageous and decisive non-violent struggle to end those practices; and, it emanated from probably the single most historic several urban square blocks in the United States' epic tale of racism and redemption.

The powerful experience of meeting some of Birmingham's leading black and white citizens -- some of whom personally experienced the bombings and clashes -- and walking with them through their historic downtown is pertinent for a column like this that deals primarily with Middle Eastern issues. This is because Birmingham holds enduring and universal lessons for all humankind - especially for people like us in the Middle East who wage protracted violent conflict. The core lessons are about the capacity of the human spirit to transform from the ways of evil to those of equity and dignity, to summon the best in our humanity that can ultimately vanquish the worst that also resides in our hearts; and, to rid society of dehumanizing policies by enacting new laws and norms that are anchored in the rule of law that is equitably applied to all.

I had the good fortune to visit key monuments in Birmingham, including the 16th Street Baptist Church that was bombed by white racists and resulted in the deaths of four young black girls inside the church; Kelly Ingram Park, where police dogs and powerful fire hoses assaulted young demonstrators; and, the new Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, that captures the drama of the struggle for civil rights in the American south and correctly links it with the continuing struggle for human rights today around the world (www.bcri.org).

Walking through this unique world on the exact days 47 years ago that King wrote his letter from jail, and having read the letter again in preparation for my visit, I am struck by three specific themes in the letter. (It was addressed by one Christian minister to fellow members of the clergy, specifically eight "liberal" white Birmingham clergymen who had published a letter in the local paper saying the growing demonstrations against segregation by blacks in the city were "unwise and untimely.") In King's now classic statement of why oppressed people resist and fight for their freedom, ideally using non-violent means, he reminds us that oppressors never voluntarily give freedom to the oppressed, but rather that the oppressed must demand their freedom and struggle for it. He explains how repeated subjugation to oppression and denial of one's basic rights leads to a dehumanizing situation that cannot be endured any longer, because you find that, "you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness'." And, he explains that if dehumanized humans are not allowed to express their grievances, resentments and frustrations non-violently, then repressed emotions, "will come out in ominous expressions of violence."

April 15-16, 1963 is a generation and a half ago, but this is timeless stuff. King's reminder of how subjugated humans will inevitably struggle to regain their humanity is a candle that does not extinguish. All is not perfect in Birmingham and other parts of the United States today, to be sure. Racism among some whites and resentment among some blacks continue to rear their heads now and then. But they are overwhelmed by the much stronger human forces of reconciliation, equal rights, political realism, communal solidarity, and the rule of law that I was privileged to encounter during my brief visit among extraordinary whites and blacks.

What happened in the American civil rights struggle in Birmingham -- and in Selma, Greensboro, Montgomery, Albany, Oxford, Atlanta, Memphis, Little Rock, Chicago, Washington and hundreds of other towns and cities -- continuously reminds us of two central points that remain relevant to people in conflicts around the world: Dehumanizing oppression will always spark self-assertive resistance; but, the rights of oppressor and oppressed can both be safeguarded through courageous political changes that follow the critical transformations which must first occur in the hearts of men and women. The hard but bountiful transformation of Birmingham beckons all who dare to emulate its triumph of human decency over vulgarity.


Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.