From J. Pius Barbour
Author: Barbour, J. Pius
Date: January 11, 1957
Location: Chester, Pa.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Nonviolence
Details
Rev. M. L. King, Jr.
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
309 South Jackson Street
Montgomery, Alabama
Dear Mike;
Can you overthrow a social system without violence? 1
Your friend,
[signed]
J. Pius Barbour
1. On 15 April 1956 during the Montgomery bus boycott, Barbour, one of King’s mentors and editor of the National Baptist Voice, delivered “Can You Change a Social Order Without Violence?” at Dexter. On that occasion Barbour had argued that “the New Testament has no social strategy and the doctrine of non-resistance is strictly a personal ethic and has nothing to do with social strategy” (Barbour, “Religion in Montgomery, Alabama,” National Baptist Voice, May 1956; see also King to J. Pius Barbour, 13 March 1956, in Papers 3:171-172).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.