Yesterday, I posted an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” As I was reading the letter in its entirety, I was struck by the addition of “self-purification” to the steps:
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action.
and later in the letter:
We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?”
Making sure you’re confident that you can withstand the consequences of direct action certainly sounds like a sensible step, but I find it interesting that he calls it “self-purification.” I would probably need to do some in-depth reading about Dr. King to understand this better.