Every April since 1963, thousands recall Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and its timeless call to reject complacency in the face of injustice. Aimed not at staunch segregationists but at well-meaning white moderates, King’s letter sent shock waves through the nation and countless churches. His words still challenge us today—but back then, they forced many to reckon with their own passivity in real time.
One of those people was R. B. Culbreth. As pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church (today Capitol Hill Baptist Church) in Washington, DC, Culbreth pastored a congregation that, like many Southern Baptist churches, had not yet integrated its membership. For years, Metropolitan embodied the kind of moderation King decried: supporting civil rights in theory while hesitating to take a firm stand. But around the time King penned his letter, Culbreth shifted his views, which we know about because of a recently discovered letter written by Carl F. H. Henry, a Metropolitan member who was also the first editor of Christianity Today.
On May 2, 1963, Culbreth would have watched in horror, alongside millions of Americans, as television channels broadcast brutal scenes from civil rights protests against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Day after day, newspapers printed vivid pictures and television networks aired shocking footage of peaceful demonstrators being knocked off their feet by high-pressure hoses and attacked by police dogs. For Culbreth, the images would have been more than just headlines—Birmingham was his hometown, a city he loved.
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