Pop 89: Letter from a Birmingham Starbucks

By Madonna Hamel

My column title comes from a quote by the podcaster Sarah Isgur, who said: “There’s a reason it’s called ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail’ and not ‘Letter from a Birmingham Starbucks.’” She was, of course, referring to the nine-page letter Martin Luther King Jr. wrote while spending eight days in a jail in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

While in jail, King’s lawyer showed him a letter published by a group of white ministers deploring the protests, but, sadly, not deploring the violence perpetrated by cops with clubs and firehoses and dogs. King wrote his famous response in the margins of the very newspaper the letter was published in. And when he ran out of space, he wrote on paper towels and a napkin.

“You deplore the demonstrations,” he wrote. “But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.”

His letter eerily reflects what’s happening in Minnesota today, where extreme levels of violence have led to fatal shootings, with no evidence of an investigation into the murders of two protesters. Not to mention the serious physical harm done to others, including bystanders.

You would almost think that protesting was a crime! And yet, everywhere you look—online, at coffee row, at our own kitchen tables—we doth protest! From parliament debates to barstool b.s.-ing to backyard blustering over a barbecue—we contend, we remonstrate, we attest. We protest, without a second thought to getting arrested, let alone shot, for it.

“There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in this nation,” wrote King in 1963. “These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts.”

King’s protests never involved throwing things, hollering expletives, or disrupting church services. Despite the bombings of Black citizens’ homes and churches, there is no record of a single f-bomb in his speeches or those of his fellows.

“We presented our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community,” he wrote. “We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification. In workshops on nonviolence we asked, ‘Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?’ and ‘Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?’”

Recently, activists undertook an “operation” in a church in Minneapolis–St. Paul to protest ICE, screaming “ICE OUT!” and “Don’t Shoot!” as they entered the church mid-prayer service. I watched the whole thing on Don Lemon’s podcast, right from the beginning, as he was driven to the church and explained that he couldn’t disclose too much because it would be “a surprise attack” led by Pastor Levy Armstrong, who later compared her actions to Jesus overturning the tables of the moneylenders in the temple.

Armstrong and Lemon were arrested. But journalism and activism aren’t crimes; they are free speech. So why were they arrested? They were arrested for disrupting a church service, which is against the law. Confusing, isn’t it? There is so much righteous indignation flying around that it’s easy to forget that the “surprise attack” was on a group of people who were praying, hopefully for peace in their city.

Despite being with the protesters, Lemon claimed he was just being a reporter—just doing his job, questioning the pastor in the midst of a service. Somehow, using his profession as a means of removing himself from the “attack” makes his noble pursuit of the truth seem…disingenuous.

However, the reason for the disruption deserves urgent focus: one of the church’s pastors is the ICE coordinator for the city. The pastor present suggested he have a dialogue with one of the protesters, who replied: This is your dialogue. The ICE pastor—which has to be The Biggest Contradiction in Terms—wasn’t there at the time. Just rows of stunned-looking churchgoers holding Bibles. At one point, I mistook the raised hands of protesters shouting “Don’t Shoot!” for those of the congregants, raising their hands to their Lord.

One of the protesters videotaped himself screaming into his cell phone and at the congregants—among them an Asian woman doing her best to soothe her obviously frightened kid—accusing them of being “rich white people sitting in lavish homes drinking their lattes in their suits.”

What surprised me most about this “surprise attack” is that the protesters, pastors among them, seem completely fine with the idea of disrupting a prayer service. Would it be OK with them if protesters entered their church, Buddhist temple, mosque, or sweat lodge? I understand they were there to call out the ICE agent pastor. But why are the congregants the ones subjected to their rage?

Meanwhile, pastors throughout the city and beyond step into the pulpit to remind the world of Christ’s constant call to welcome the foreigner. Nonviolent protesters stand witness to the actions of aggressive agents. At a vigil after the death of Renee Good, Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of New Hampshire said:

“I have told the clergy that we may be entering into…witness. And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us, with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

How did we get here? And how do we counter hatred of immigrants, of churchgoers, of journalists, of protesters, of each other? We are all implicated, wrote King. We can’t sit idly by and drink lattes, like Isgur and the angry protester remind us. Will we go beyond “superficial analysis” and excuses to ask ourselves how we can help in the healing?