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From J. Pius Barbour

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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.

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