Introduction

In April 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march in Birmingham in support of African-Americans whose civil rights had been denied in the laws of Alabama. Because the marchers had been denied a permit to hold a march, they were arrested and jailed. While he was in jail Dr. King wrote a letter to eight Birmingham clergymen explaining why he and his colleagues had been willing to break the law in order to carry forward the work of acquiring civil rights for all Americans. Since 1963 the letter, which is about 7000 words long, has been published, studied, read, and quoted countless times. It is one of the principal documents from a movement that may well be the most morally luminous in American history. The Letter is written in language so eloquent and inspiring that we at Greater Birmingham Ministries decided to mine it for materials that might be incorporated into worship services. We offer these liturgical resources as a gift to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities who support the work of GBM and to others who may wish to utilize them. We are sending them out a few days in advance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Letter which falls on April 16, 2013. Throughout these resources we have paraphrased Dr. King’s Letter. When we have quoted it, we have employed quotation marks. Because the quotations are so brief, there is no violation of copyright. You are free to use what we have written as it stands or to adapt it as you like.

Gathering in God’s Name

One: Lord God, we give thanks this day for our brother Martin and his prophetic witness,
All: Who believed in the power of dialogue to help persons “rise to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood,”
One: Who lamented the absence of voices of support from people of faith
All: When “bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest,”
One: Who gave thanks to You for the “noble souls” from the churches and synagogues
All: Who “broke loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined as active partners in the struggle for freedom,”
One: Who trusted You with a faith that would move mountains, professing “We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham”
All: Because “The sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.”

A Confession

One: Merciful God, for failing to love persons because of the color of their skin,
All: Forgive our city, O God.
One: For “the appalling silence of the good people,”
All: Forgive our city, O God.
One: For the pain, suffering and death that many endured because of the hardness of our hearts,
All: Forgive our city, O God.
One: For failing to “respect the dignity and worth of all persons,”
All: Forgive our city, O God.
One: For failing to understand that you require justice, mercy, and humility,
All: Forgive our city, O God.
One: For failing to hear the cries of our neighbors who continue to hurt,
All: Forgive our city, O God.
All: Gracious God, Free us from “the dark depths of prejudice and racism” that prevent persons in our city from living fully, and through the guidance of your spirit, help us learn to live as sisters and brothers of the family of God, in loving community, one with another. Amen.

A Meditation

In the spring of 1963, Dr. King was challenged to explain why he, an outsider, had come to Birmingham. He responded to this question in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, and outlined his ties to the city and the invitation he received from the Birmingham Affiliate of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights to engage in a nonviolent direction action program. “But more basically,” he emphasized, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here . . . and I am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.”

Our faith compels us, as it did Dr. King, to move beyond familiar territory and to witness boldly in places that yearn for healing. At this time in the life of our city, where might God be calling you to carry “the gospel of freedom”?

A Prayer for the Promised Land of Racial Justice

One: “The time is always ripe to do right.”
All: Help us, O God, to imagine the “promised land of racial justice.”
One: “The time is always ripe to do right.”
All: Teach us, O God, to be “willing co-workers” with you.
One: “The time is always ripe to do right.”
All: Give us courage, O God, to search ourselves.
One: “The time is always ripe to do right.”
All: Help us, O God, to move “with a sense of great urgency,” for the right time is now. Amen.

A Responsive Reading

One: The Lord your God is one Lord
All: Let us love our God.
One: We are all caught in a “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
All: Let us love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
One: We are discouraged when we consider how little we understand each other.
All: Let us learn to speak in dialogue rather than in monologue.
One: When we remembered our failures, “a shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us.”
All: Let us set aside cynicism and despair. Let us put our hope in God. Amen.

A Prayer for God’s Mercy

O God, You have sent your prophets, those great nonconformists, and they called us to be just, but too often we have failed. Too often our laws are unjust, our societies are unjust, our lives are unjust. Too often we have remained silent in the face of injustice. Too often we have tolerated injustice for generations because it was not convenient to establish justice in our own generation. Injustice is here among us. Have mercy upon us, O God.

You have sent your prophets, those great nonconformists, and they called us to be kind, but too often we have failed. Too often we have not heard the cries of those who suffer because they are poor. Too often we have disrespected those of races other than our own. Too often we have been too timid to show kindness to those who are different from ourselves. Unkindness is here among us. Have mercy upon us, O God.

A Prayer for Communities of Faith

Eternal God, who gathers us together in our communities of faith, help us to hear clearly the concerns of all our brothers and sisters. Show us how to join together in solidarity and how, together, we can move toward “the promised land of racial justice.” We ask for courage to live out our faith in ways that are pleasing to you, and for strength to engage in “strong, persistent, and determined” action. May we take bold stands against injustice. Keep us, O God, on the path that Dr. King and the foot soldiers blazed until we “reach our goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation.” Amen.

A Prayer for God’s Help

God of all the peoples of the earth, we who are your children ask you to help us all to live as brothers and sisters rather than as enemies.
We ask you to lead us all from “the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest.”
We ask you to lift us all from “the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”
We ask you to free us all from “the paralyzing chains of conformity” and make us “active partners in the struggle for freedom.”
We ask you to direct us all from “the dark mountain of disappointment” into “the tunnel of hope.”
We ask you to remove “the dark clouds of racial prejudice” and “the deep fog of misunderstanding” so that we all may view “the radiant stars of love and brotherhood shining in all their scintillating beauty.”
We ask you to lead us to a “substantive and positive peace” in which we all respect the dignity and worth of all people.
We ask you to show us how to become “creative extremists” for love, for justice, and for freedom. Amen.

Sending Forth
With all communities of faith, let us join together in one earnest hope that “the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love . . . will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” Amen.

First, Dr. King acknowledges the temptation of inaction and the risk of speaking out:

“We are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on . . . Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.”

Next, he calls on people of faith to remember where our loyalties lie:

“This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls ‘enemy.’”

Dr. King already knew all about the 1% and the 47% that have been talked about so much this year. He called for fundamental change:

“A true revolution of values will cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”

The vitality, integrity and soul of our country and world depend on this “revolution of values”:

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when ‘every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.’”

Rev. Angie Wright, GBM Faith-in-Community Coordinator inspired by Carolyn Crawford, long-time advocate & visionary for Economic Justice

The General Fund is something of a catchall for non-education-related programs, including Medicaid, child protective services, public health and safety, prisons, and the court system – not to mention “legislative activities”. It’s funded by a patchwork of revenue sources including insurance company premium taxes, interest on state deposits, some ad valorem taxes, and taxes on cigarettes and booze.

All of these revenues are adversely impacted by a bad economy. Seriously, when interest rates are hovering around 1% and people are cutting back on big purchases, there’s no way to get adequate funding for essential services. A short-term inflow of money is not going to solve the long-term flaws in the system.

So what can we do about it? Alabama Arise has a great call to action that gets right to the core of the problem and offers a real solution – and it does it in three succinct paragraphs:

Tuesday’s “yes” vote saved Alabama from an immediate funding crisis and devastating funding cuts next year, but it wasn’t a cure for our state’s funding shortfalls. The General Fund budget still languishes under a structural deficit: As in many states, our revenues simply don’t grow fast enough to keep up with the rising costs of Medicaid, prisons and other public services. The amendment that voters approved Tuesday is a short-term patch for a long-term problem.

Raiding a savings account every year to pay ongoing expenses is not a sustainable way to fund the health care infrastructure that makes life better for all of us. We must hold our leaders to their pledge that this amendment merely creates a bridge to a sustainable solution. From now on, they must keep the Alabama Trust Fund intact.

When our lawmakers return in February to craft budgets for 2014, we urge them to approve new revenues to stabilize Medicaid, mental health, public safety and other public services for the long term. And they should design a revenue plan that doesn’t make our state’s upside-down tax system even worse. It’s time to make hard decisions and establish an adequate, reliable funding stream to protect the most vulnerable among us. (emphasis mine)

It’s up to each of us to contact our legislators and the Governor with this message and to demand action on comprehensive tax reform in the upcoming legislative session. Click here to personalize the text above and send it directly to your Representative and Senator. Write your own letter or email. Call. Visit. Push and push and push (politely, of course) until you see results. Nothing will change if we don’t make it change.

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*The Secretary of State’s website shows 2.6 million plus registered voters; the AP reported 533,742 total votes with 88 percent of the precincts report­ing. That’s just over 20% turnout, and it really kinda sucks.

cross-posted at Birmingham Blues

Keep an eye on this blog for more information about the campaign!

They were compelled by conscience and faith to stand against an unjust law — a faith leader, a student, a retiree, and citizens who were once undocumented immigrants. A mother with her baby also joined the prayers and singing to protest the way the law “rips mamas from babies” and causes children to live in fear of losing their parents.

This law causes good people to face unjust arrest every day. They risk arrest when they go to work to support their families, when they drive to church or the grocery store, and when they take their children to school. Today love moved us to risk arrest for them.

Responding to the mocking of churches by some Legislative leaders, Rev. Fred Hammond said, “When moral and religious teachings are dismissed as exaggerations, then it is necessary for people of faith and of conscience to step up and do everything in their power to prevent such laws. To remain silent is to be complicit with such evil.”

They came because they had been there.

They came because they wished they had been there.

They came because they don’t want to go back there again.

They came because of HB56.

They came because they felt called to do something about a mean spirit set loose in our country. A mean spirit that wants to turn back the times, to go back to “the good old days” that weren’t so good for people without privilege. A mean spirit that once denied access to voting booths and lunch counters and water fountains, that still denies full access to justice and dignity to people with certain pigment, and that now seeks to deny access to people without papers.

And so they marched. They whispered, “We are standing on holy ground, walking in holy footsteps.” Walking in the footsteps of people who 47 years ago marched this same road to overturn the tables of injustice, like Jesus did when he overturned the tables in the Temple.

Standing on holy ground: When Moses stood on holy ground, God told him to take off his shoes. As soon as he did, God gave him his marching orders: go to Egypt, and set my people free!

Walking in holy footsteps: as soon as the disciples dropped their nets to follow Jesus, he gave them their marching orders: If you want to be my disciple, pick up the cross and follow me.

Walking in holy footsteps, standing on holy ground. Marching orders seem to follow.

You are standing on holy ground, My Beloveds, not just when you enter the sanctuary of the church but every time your foot touches the earth, because every speck of dirt that God ever created is holy.

So what about walking in holy footsteps? Remember when you were a child at the beach, running behind someone much larger than you, trying to stay in their footsteps, leaping from footstep to footstep quickly before the next wave washed the footstep away, running without looking up because their legs were so much longer than yours? Trying not to make your own footprints, trying not to miss a step, not caring where they were going, just not wanting them to end?

It’s time to look up, time to pay attention. Whose footsteps are you walking in? Consciously or not, we are all walking in someone’s. Are they the ones you really want to follow? And where are those footsteps taking you?  Is it really where you want to go?

Standing on holy ground, check. Walking in holy footsteps, check. It must be time to take off your shoes, drop your nets, and get ready for your marching orders. “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around.”

Rev. Angie Wright

Give Us Our Daily Bread

My mother loves to cook.  She always loved to try out new recipes, which unfortunately did not go over very well with her four young children.  Unfortunately, her culinary skills were lost on us when we were young.  Often she would spend hours preparing a new exotic dish, only to be met with cries of, “Oh, gross!  What is this?”

That’s what the freed but hungry slaves said when God sent them out to gather food during their journey toward the promised land.   The word “manna” actually means “what is this??”

A people set free from slavery prayed, “Give us our daily bread.”  Manna was God’s answer.

God gave instructions to these pilgrims about the divine provisions:

  Each morning the heads of households were go out and gather manna for that day.

  Each householder was to gather the same amount for each person in his household.

  On the 6^th day they were to gather enough for 2 days.

  On the 7^th day they were not to gather at all.

Some funny things happened.  Some gathered more than God instructed, but even so, they had nothing left over.  Some gathered less, but still had enough.  Those who tried to hoard for future days found that the manna spoiled overnight and became infested with worms.  Those who went out to gather on the 7^th day, found none.

This is the economy of God.

There is miraculously enough for each person, each and every day.  God provides, we participate.  We gather and we distribute.  We are entrusted with this holy duty.  If we keep too much for ourselves, it will spoil and become infested with worms.  This may be metaphorical, but it’s worth considering during this season of Lent.  We are entrusted with providing for all who are in our care, all who are unable to care for themselves.  This is not metaphorical, and our failure to do so is also worth considering during this season of Lent.

God could feed the world without us, but for some reason, we are given the blessing and burden of putting food on the tables of the world.  Our own children may scrunch up their noses and say, “gross, what is that?,” but many are hungry for the bread of Life.  That is both metaphorical, and not.

Rev. Angie Wright

Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) has been working for years to add sexual orientation to the hate crimes statute, and Rep. Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham) has lobbied for the addition of gender identity as well. This year she has introduced HB28, which would amend the statute to “provide for those additional penalties for crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.”

The House Judiciary Committee has failed to move on HB28.

However, this week the Senate’s Judiciary Committee approved SB27, which would amend the state’s hate crimes statute to “provide additional penalties against any person who commits arson, burglary, or criminal mischief in any degree against religious property, such as churches and cemeteries.” The bill has one sponsor, Majority Whip Sen. Gerald Dial (R-Lineville), and no co-sponsors. It has received a second reading in the Senate, which means it will come up shortly for a vote.

While it is abhorrent to me that anyone would desecrate a sacred space, I find it really disturbing that our legislature would put property above people when making changes to the hate crimes statue.

Advocates gathered just last Sunday in Montgomery for the 14th Annual Vigil for Victims of Hate and Violence, an event that started after the vicious beating and murder of Billy Jack Gaither in 1999. There have been far too many others lost to us over the years – and too many who are forever marked by beatings and abuse intended to terrorize and punish them because of who they are and who they love.

If we are to add protections to our current hate crimes statute, let us remember that our LGBT sisters and brothers are persons of sacred worth to God. As much as we value our sacred spaces, we must value our fellow human beings more.

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If you would like to share your feedback on SB27 and/or HB28, please contact your legislators as soon as possible. You can find their names and contact information by entering your nine-digit ZIP code here.

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There are differences of opinion regarding the usefulness of hate crimes laws. Some people say a crime is a crime and the punishment should be the same regardless of the reason the perpetrator targeted the victim. On the other hand, the criminal justice system has always considered motivation when determining punishment for a crime — mitigating factors, aggravating factors. I think most people consider terrorism-related murders to be more heinous than a robbery gone bad because the intent is to terrorize not just the murder victims but an entire community.

Unfortunately, when the community is an already marginalized group of people, it’s far too easy to blame the victim (“black people should know to stay out of that part of town”, “she looks Mexican, so she must be illegal”, “he’s gay, and I think he made a pass at me”, etc.) and let the perpetrator off with a lighter sentence than s/he would have received if the victim had been more privileged.

My daughter is singing “Colors of the Wind” in her upcoming voice recital. I’ve always loved the song, with its evocation of the beauty we can find in our differences as well as our commonalities, and it seems newly relevant in light of the struggles we face in Alabama today. Angie wrote recently of reading the Bible with a new lens:

I’m going to start reading the Bible back to front. Or maybe hanging off of a limb upside down, like a bat. Then maybe I’ll see the things I need to see, the first time around.

The lyrics to “Colors of the Wind” encourage us to look at the world around us through a new lens. “Walk the footsteps of a stranger.” How often do we do that, really? How many of us spend significant time building relationships with people who don’t look and think like us?

Birmingham is still, unfortunately, a city stratified by lines of race and economic circumstance. Most of us live, work, and worship with people who share a similar skin tone and pay grade. We tend to stick with people who share our political views, fearing we can’t build coalition with those who think differently. And political leaders use these divides to their advantage, preaching a politics of scarcity that tells us we’ll lose something if someone else gains.

What do we miss when we stay inside the lines, letting our fears and prejudices keep us from taking a breath and leaping out into the amazing world that surrounds us?

For me, I would have missed hearing the “inside story” of the civil rights movement in Birmingham from the mouths of the people who lived it and are still living it today, a story that is so much deeper and broader and more compelling than the one I learned in school.

I would have missed the opportunity to get to know the Dreamers who are giving voice to undocumented young people who want to live out their lives and give back to the only country they’ve ever known. Sure, I would have written about the evils of HB56 on my own blog, and I would have attended the rallies, but it’s unlikely I would have had real conversations with the students who are putting their lives and safety on the line to speak out against injustice.

I have been an activist ally for LGBT equality for most of my adult life, but were I not where I am now, I would have missed the opportunity to learn from LGBT people of color about their experiences of trying to live authentically in a culture that doubly oppresses them because of who they are and who they love.

What we miss most, I think, is living into the reality of a culture of abundance. We miss the joy of knowing that lifting up our neighbor lifts us as well. We miss the wisdom we can gain by sitting at the feet of people who have lived the powerful experiences that shape our world. We miss the beauty and richness that is all around us, if we will only “walk the footsteps of a stranger”. We will surely learn things we never knew we never knew. Shall we?

People who are daily labeled illegal are now labeled Leaders.

People who’ve been told it’s time to leave now know it’s time to lead.

People who’ve been told to move now know it’s time for a movement.

Men in work shirts, university professors, mothers and grandmothers, college students, civil rights icons, teenagers and children, all calling out their vision for a beautiful Alabama. In a moment of quiet, a latina child calls out, Roll Tide! Everyone laughs, but I think we all feel the painful irony. That’s just how deeply rooted in Alabama our immigrant neighbors are, and yet the intent of Alabama’s new immigration law is to force them to leave or to live here in fear.

Roll Tide? Oh yes, the tide is turning in Alabama, and it will not be turned back. We are One family, One Alabama. Brown, black and white, in Alabama, of all places. HB56 is bringing us together. It’s a miracle. Thanks be to God. Gracias a Dios.