What evidence does King provide to explain why he believes King and the clergymen “will be sadly mistaken” if they expect Mr. Boutwell “to bring the millennium to Birmingham”?
King cites the fact that Boutwell is a segregationist, that it will take pressure from Civil Rights groups to prompt him to act, and that he sees himself as one of the "priviledged".
While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to
you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than
individuals.
Letter From Birmingham Jail
