The Backlash Against Charles Morgan Jr. After He Blamed ‘Good White Christians’ for the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The cost of truth-telling
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In my first book, The Color of Compromise, I opened with the story of Charles Morgan Jr.
He was a young white lawyer in Birmingham when a white supremacist bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church and killed four young girls—Carole Robertson, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins—during church on Sunday, September 15, 1963.
The next day, Morgan took to the podium at a meeting of the Young Men’s Business Club of Birmingham and gave a shocking speech, shocking coming from a white southern man at that time.
“Who did it? Who threw that bomb? The answer should be, ‘We all did it.’ Every last one of us is condemned for that crime and the bombing before it and the ones last month, last year, a decade ago. We all did it.”
Morgan was not speaking to a group of Ku Klux Klan members. The most strident prosegregationist personnel were not in the audience.
These were the moderate, levelheaded, unity-minded voices of reason in the city.
The members of this club were rising leaders in Birmingham who had made gestures at school desegregation and attempts to blunt the brutality of the infamous Eugene “Bull” Connor.
It would have been easy to condemn the white supremacist extremists alone for the bombing, but Charles Morgan Jr. did something far more hazardous—he blamed the respectable white people for their silence and inaction.
He even included the “good white Christians.”
He said, “It is all the Christians and their ministers who spoke too late in anguished cries against violence.”
What I did not write about in my first book was what happened after Morgan’s speech.
Four young Black girls had been murdered at church on Sunday. But instead of directing their ire toward white supremacists and the rampant racism in the city, Morgan’s listeners reserved much of their anger for him and his family.
The next morning at 5:30 a.m., Morgan received a call at his house. “Is the mortician there yet?” a voice over the phone asked.
“I don’t know any morticians,” Morgan responded. “Well, you will, when the bodies are all over your front yard.” The caller hung up.
Morgan received many more death threats, and his opponents even threatened his wife and young son. Within a few weeks, Morgan and his wife decided to leave the city permanently.
Morgan closed his law practice. He gave away his law books and furniture. Their son gave away his dogs. “There was no way for us to remain in the city of which I had been a part yet from which I had grown apart.”
Morgan went on to have a notable career in civil rights law.
He helped represent Muhammad Ali when the champion boxer refused the Vietnam draft because of principled opposition and religious beliefs. He sued to desegregate the University of Alabama, his alma mater.
As a leader in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Morgan helped defend Julian Bond after the civil rights organizer was denied his seat in the Georgia legislature because of his anti–Vietnam War stance
But Morgan would never again live in the city where he had so boldly denounced racism.
Many people want to count themselves as advocates for racial justice, but they must count the cost of truth-telling first.
What happened to Charles Morgan Jr. and his family is an example of the backlash that almost invariably befalls those who pursue the spirit of justice.
Telling the truth about racism will face vocal, targeted, and even violent obstruction.
This happened after every revolt of enslaved people. It happened after the Civil War and Reconstruction. It happened in response to the civil rights movement. It happened in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the racial justice uprisings of 2020.
Racist backlash follows every gesture toward racial justice.
Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way in his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?:
“He remembers that with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that the Negro has come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash.”
In the Bible Jesus shares an illustration: “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?”
He then explains the consequences for failing to anticipate the burden of an ambition.
“For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish’” (Luke 14:28–30).
In a similar manner, saying that one is for racial justice without counting the cost is a recipe for retreat.
Many people prematurely proclaim themselves allies and activists before considering what such stances may require of them.
But even as the spirit of justice moves people to challenge existing norms that oppress and exploit people, others will be moved to oppose those efforts.
In every instance, some people benefit from trampling the rights and denigrating the humanity of others. They will not surrender their power willingly. As I have written before, white supremacy never goes down without a fight.
Most people are not willing to give up their comfort, status, time, or treasure to truly devote themselves to the cause of racial justice.
But it has always been a small yet stalwart group of people who have been gripped by the spirit of justice, who cannot and will not give up. To learn from them is to learn our own potential and power.
Have you considered the price? Are you truly prepared to sacrifice as much as or more than people like Charles Morgan, Jr.?
Count the cost before you claim to be inspired by the spirit of justice.
What are some other examples of backlash to racial justice you’ve seen? Leave a comment below!
You can read more about Charles Morgan, Jr. and others who counted the cost of racial justice and still pursued progress. Order today!
Third or 4th time reading the now. Hit me Morgan’s accusations were spot on. The local reaction indicates guilt.
Thanks for this article. It would be interesting to see a list of all white Americans you feel have truly stood with and sacrificed wholeheartedly for the cause of racial justice throughout American history. People who truly put "skin in the game". (John Brown, etc.) People who saw African-Americans so much as equals that they were willing to stand up for them (and sacrifice), as they would for other white Americans if they were being oppresses in the same ways.