To John H. Herriford
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: March 31, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Civil Disobedience
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
Herriford, a student at the University of Minnesota, wrote King on 11 November 1960 to offer suggestions for an upcoming televised debate against segregationist James J. Kilpatrick.1 Following the debate, Herriford wrote again, expressing disappointment at King’s performance.2 Although King indicates that he did not read Herriford’s letter prior to the debate, he thanks him for his helpful suggestions.
Mr. John H. Harriford
3918 Portland Avenue
Minneapolis 7, Minnesota
Dear Mr. Harriford:
I guess you have concluded by now that either I have not received your letters or that I am the most negligent person in the world concerning my correspondence. The fact is that I received both of your recent letters and I am just getting to the point of answering them. The only answer that I can give concerning my seeming negligence is that I have had so many accumulated responsibilities, problems, and mail over the last few months that I have remained behind almost constantly since November. All of this, [coupled?] with several weeks away from the office as a result of my physician’s demand that I get some rest, accounts for the delay in replying to your letters.3 I hope you will accept my sincere apology.
Words are inadequate for me to express my appreciation to you for your very helpful suggestions concerning the debate that I had with Mr. Kilpatrick of Virginia. I only regret that I did not receive your first letter until a week after the debate. I am sure that I would have made a better showing if I had had the sound and able arguments you presented concerning the breaking of a tyrannous law.4 As you know, I had undergone a great deal of stress before the debate. I spent seven days in jail after participating in the Atlanta sit-ins and immediately after my release I had to take a hasty trip to Nigeria, West Africa to attend the inaugural ceremonies of Governor General Azikewe.5 I got back just in time to make the debate. With such a heavy [schedule?] in the background, I simply did not have time to prepare for the debate as I had hoped. Also, the question of civil disobedience is new in the minds of many people and it is difficult to explain in a half hour discussion. If the debate had been one hour, I am sure that many more fruitful points could have been brought out from my point of view.
May I say that I have found the points that you presented to Miss Bluford in the letter which you enclosed to be most helpful to me in discussions since the debate.6 I think you have done more to clarify my thinking on this issue than anyone with whom I have talked. I plan to do an article for some major magazine on this question in the very near future. I would appreciate any suggestions that you may have. Also, I would like to have your permission to use the arguments that you set forth in the letter with reference to the difference between tyrannous and non-tyrannous laws.7
In closing, let me express my sincere gratitude to you for your interest in and support of the struggle which we are facing in the south. Such moral support is of inestimable value for the continuance of my humble efforts. Please feel free to write me at any time, and I hope we will become more personally acquainted in the not too distant future.
Very sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
1. On 26 November 1960, King debated Kilpatrick on the topic “Are Sit-in Strikes Justifiable,” on the television show “The Nation’s Future” (see Papers 5:556–564). John Harold Herriford (1917–1984) first entered the University of Minnesota in 1941 but did not complete a B.S. in political science until 1962. In 1965, he earned a second B.S. from the University of Minnesota in English. Herriford had urged King to argue that businesses licensed by the public cannot defend racial discrimination (Herriford to King, 11 November 1960; Herriford to King, 19 December 1960).
2. Herriford to King, 19 December 1960. SNCC students were similarly disappointed by King’s appearance on the show (see Introduction in Papers 5:40–41).
3. King vacationed in the Bahamas from 19–26 February and shortened his Detroit speaking engagement in March, after heeding a “demand from my physician that I get some much needed rest” (King to G. Merrill Lenox, 15 February 1961). After another physical examination in May, King was ordered to take six weeks of rest during the summer or “face the possibility of ominous consequences” (King to Ewald Bash, 15 May 1961).
4. In his 11 November 1960 letter to King, Herriford wrote that there is a legal basis for disobeying a tyrannous law: “A ‘tyrannous’ law is a law which compels the minority to do things which the majority is not compelled to do. Or, such a law grants privileges to the majority which are denied the minority. Thus, there is no tyranny in a law which compels the minority to adhere to the same standards that apply to the majority.”
5. King and a group of student activists were jailed on 19 October 1960, after requesting service at the Magnolia Room, a segregated restaurant in Rich’s department store in Atlanta. King was released on bond on 27 October 1960. From 14–18 November, King was in Lagos, Nigeria, for swearing-in of Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first person of African descent to be head of state in Nigeria. For more on King’s arrest and Azikiwe’s swearing-in ceremony, see Introduction in Papers 5:35–41.
6. On 17 December 1960, Herriford wrote a lengthy letter to Lucile H. Bluford, of the newspaper The Call, in response to an editorial titled, “Must Obey Laws or Pay the Penalty,” which discussed the King and Kilpatrick debate. Herriford felt the editorial mistakenly supported Kilpatrick and segregationists, and he presented various issues for Bluford to consider including the difference between tyrannous and nontyrannous laws, the authority of a democracy where not all citizens have the right to vote, King’s need to attack segregation on a legal and moral basis, and the difference between individual anarchy and group protest of tyrannous laws.
7. Herriford replied to King’s letter on 11 April 1961, giving him permission to use any or all of the information from his earlier two letters. King later discussed the difference between just and unjust laws from a legal rather than a moral perspective in his September 1961 article “The Time for Freedom Has Come” (pp. 275–276 in this volume).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.