MLK Speaker Highlights King’s Jailhouse Letter In ‘Unity’ Talk
January 19, 2021 at 1:55 a.m.
MLK Speaker Highlights King’s Jailhouse Letter In ‘Unity’ Talk
By David [email protected]
The letter was in response to a statement titled “A Call for Unity” by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods.
The theme of this year’s commemoration luncheon was “Unity.” Due to the pandemic, the event was scaled back and held at New Life Christian Church with limited seating. While about 50 people attended in person, it also was shown and is available online. Videos of Warsaw Community High School Select Chorale singing “Life Every Voice” and “We Shall Overcome,” as well as videos from Grace College students, were shown instead of in-person.
Abercrombie said she loved that the event’s program had the word “Unity” on it beneath her photo.
“Unity is what’s going to get us through this time and take us on from this point. United, we stand. Divided we fall,” she said. “God knew what he was doing when he created all the colors. The god of all creation, all-wise, all-knowing, discerning God. He knew what he was doing. But see, man can get in God’s way many times. We all do. But this unity: Think if we all really work together how marvelous, how wonderful everything could be. It should be.”
She said King won the Nobel Peace Prize for leadership of the Civil Rights Movement and the commitment to achieving racial justice through nonviolent action.
“And that he did. That message he took forward. ... And it wasn’t just the people of color. There were people, white people, who joined together and held hands and we went forward together to make a difference in this world,” she said.
Abercrombie asked the Lord what message she should bring to Monday’s event. She ended up choosing some segments of the 1963 letter that showed King’s grace, brilliance and leadership, “that God light inside of him, that perhaps a lot of you aren’t aware of.”
The letter has came to be known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.”
“And this really reveals parts of him, his character. Perhaps if you’ve never read it or heard it, it will bring some deeper insight into how phenomenal a human being he was. And I’m so grateful for him, because if it wasn’t for him and others who came before me ... I would not be here,” she said.
The letter is extensive, and even with Abercrombie reading just segments of it, about 30 minutes were spent on her reading and expounding on it.
Responding to the clergymen calling King an outsider, King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In the letter, he responds to criticism on religious grounds, while also challenging the social system of the day on legal, political and historical grounds.
“In any nonviolent campaign, there are four basic steps: Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive. Negotiation. Self-purification. And then direct action. We have gone through all of those, as injustice engulfs this community,” Abercrombie read from the letter.
After finishing up with the segments of the letter, Abercrombie encouraged everyone to take the time to read the whole letter.
“It is long, but it is powerful. Every line. Every word. And just as important and pertinent and timely as it was the day he wrote it from his cell, and maybe even more so today, he walked and wrote and lived from a position of love and hope. I hope that that is something we can all learn to do. That we don’t go to sleep. That we’re not lauded into complacency because it’s somebody else. Because you don’t understand, we are all connected. It will come to your doorstep one day. It never stays on the other side of the tracks. It never stays ‘over there,’” Abercrombie said.
When there was a heroin epidemic many years ago in Harlem and other inner cities, she said, “There was nothing to be done about it because it’s ‘OK because it’s them over there.’ But if we let things go on like that, then Big Pharma, who is legal, comes and they make opioids and make them as strong as they can possibly make them. And then when you send little Jenny who has twisted her ankle and then she’s given something for pain, called Oxycontin, and then she’s hooked. And it trickles into your area, too.”
Abercrombie said she bet that everyone at Monday’s event had been touched by the opioid epidemic.
“But when we start to think them, and not us, that’s when that devil just comes in and takes a seat ... and makes himself quite comfortable and just watches. He watches as we separate even further apart, us and them,” she said. “We’re so busy destroying one another, he can just chill out and that’s exactly what he’s doing when we don’t watch for our brothers. Because we are all brothers and we are all sisters.”
She said it’s often too late when we begin to ask ourselves, “What did I let happen?”
“That darkness can be penetrated by the smallest prick of light in love. So we better be careful. While we’re busy fighting each other and turning our backs against each other, Satan is doing his thing,” she said.
“God gave us everything when he gave us Jesus. But there are some rules and some things that we must do in order for that gift that he’s given us to fully matter to us and do all that he sent him to us for.”
She quoted John 13:34, which says, “The new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” She then quoted 1 John 4:16, which says in part, “God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God and God in them.”
Abercrombie talked about how Black people were left out of the history books, naming a list of African Americans and the things they invented. She said she is putting together a history program that will be available to all people who want it. It will be free for download.
“If we know how much we gave to this country ... things would be different,” she said.
“Stand up and do the right thing, for the right reasons. That’s what God calls us all to do. We can change the world.”
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The letter was in response to a statement titled “A Call for Unity” by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods.
The theme of this year’s commemoration luncheon was “Unity.” Due to the pandemic, the event was scaled back and held at New Life Christian Church with limited seating. While about 50 people attended in person, it also was shown and is available online. Videos of Warsaw Community High School Select Chorale singing “Life Every Voice” and “We Shall Overcome,” as well as videos from Grace College students, were shown instead of in-person.
Abercrombie said she loved that the event’s program had the word “Unity” on it beneath her photo.
“Unity is what’s going to get us through this time and take us on from this point. United, we stand. Divided we fall,” she said. “God knew what he was doing when he created all the colors. The god of all creation, all-wise, all-knowing, discerning God. He knew what he was doing. But see, man can get in God’s way many times. We all do. But this unity: Think if we all really work together how marvelous, how wonderful everything could be. It should be.”
She said King won the Nobel Peace Prize for leadership of the Civil Rights Movement and the commitment to achieving racial justice through nonviolent action.
“And that he did. That message he took forward. ... And it wasn’t just the people of color. There were people, white people, who joined together and held hands and we went forward together to make a difference in this world,” she said.
Abercrombie asked the Lord what message she should bring to Monday’s event. She ended up choosing some segments of the 1963 letter that showed King’s grace, brilliance and leadership, “that God light inside of him, that perhaps a lot of you aren’t aware of.”
The letter has came to be known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.”
“And this really reveals parts of him, his character. Perhaps if you’ve never read it or heard it, it will bring some deeper insight into how phenomenal a human being he was. And I’m so grateful for him, because if it wasn’t for him and others who came before me ... I would not be here,” she said.
The letter is extensive, and even with Abercrombie reading just segments of it, about 30 minutes were spent on her reading and expounding on it.
Responding to the clergymen calling King an outsider, King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In the letter, he responds to criticism on religious grounds, while also challenging the social system of the day on legal, political and historical grounds.
“In any nonviolent campaign, there are four basic steps: Collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive. Negotiation. Self-purification. And then direct action. We have gone through all of those, as injustice engulfs this community,” Abercrombie read from the letter.
After finishing up with the segments of the letter, Abercrombie encouraged everyone to take the time to read the whole letter.
“It is long, but it is powerful. Every line. Every word. And just as important and pertinent and timely as it was the day he wrote it from his cell, and maybe even more so today, he walked and wrote and lived from a position of love and hope. I hope that that is something we can all learn to do. That we don’t go to sleep. That we’re not lauded into complacency because it’s somebody else. Because you don’t understand, we are all connected. It will come to your doorstep one day. It never stays on the other side of the tracks. It never stays ‘over there,’” Abercrombie said.
When there was a heroin epidemic many years ago in Harlem and other inner cities, she said, “There was nothing to be done about it because it’s ‘OK because it’s them over there.’ But if we let things go on like that, then Big Pharma, who is legal, comes and they make opioids and make them as strong as they can possibly make them. And then when you send little Jenny who has twisted her ankle and then she’s given something for pain, called Oxycontin, and then she’s hooked. And it trickles into your area, too.”
Abercrombie said she bet that everyone at Monday’s event had been touched by the opioid epidemic.
“But when we start to think them, and not us, that’s when that devil just comes in and takes a seat ... and makes himself quite comfortable and just watches. He watches as we separate even further apart, us and them,” she said. “We’re so busy destroying one another, he can just chill out and that’s exactly what he’s doing when we don’t watch for our brothers. Because we are all brothers and we are all sisters.”
She said it’s often too late when we begin to ask ourselves, “What did I let happen?”
“That darkness can be penetrated by the smallest prick of light in love. So we better be careful. While we’re busy fighting each other and turning our backs against each other, Satan is doing his thing,” she said.
“God gave us everything when he gave us Jesus. But there are some rules and some things that we must do in order for that gift that he’s given us to fully matter to us and do all that he sent him to us for.”
She quoted John 13:34, which says, “The new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” She then quoted 1 John 4:16, which says in part, “God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God and God in them.”
Abercrombie talked about how Black people were left out of the history books, naming a list of African Americans and the things they invented. She said she is putting together a history program that will be available to all people who want it. It will be free for download.
“If we know how much we gave to this country ... things would be different,” she said.
“Stand up and do the right thing, for the right reasons. That’s what God calls us all to do. We can change the world.”
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