YOUNGSTOWN — The Rev. Kenneth Gifford draws a direct line from the importance of a famous letter written six decades ago to its relevance now.

“We need to dialogue more and work together. We don’t need guilt, but we need solutions” to reach greater equality, Gifford, pastor of Poland United Methodist Church, said.

The longtime pastor expressed such sentiments after he was one of 27 community activists, religious leaders, judges, students, elected officials and others who each read aloud assigned parts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on Monday in the Mahoning County Courthouse rotunda.

Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past sponsored the reading, which was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of when King penned the document on April 16, 1963.

Specifically, Gifford read the portion in which King expounds on his love for the church, but also accuses it of conforming too much to the status quo of segregation and laxity in taking a definitive stand against the practice.

INEQUITIES PERSIST

Gifford, who also had read the letter while in seminary, noted that King supported women’s rights. The letter is applicable today largely because inequities still persist regarding equality for women, minorities and people of different sexual orientations, he explained.

King and other civil rights leaders were arrested April 12, 1963, which was Good Friday, after circuit Judge W.A. Jenkins Jr. had issued an injunction a few days earlier against boycotts and other pieces of the Birmingham campaign, a ruling King and the others announced they were going to disobey.

During his eight days in solitary confinement, King wrote the letter in response to eight white Alabama clergymen who had published their “Call for Unity” in the Birmingham News. The moderates denounced King’s methods and timing, claiming in part that they could result in further violence.

King spent much of his incarceration writing the document on small scraps of newspaper that his lawyer smuggled out of his cell daily. Each day, King continued writing where he had left off the previous day.

Adding a layer of authenticity to Monday’s reading was Janice W. Kelsey of Birmingham, who spent four days in jail as a 16-year-old after having taken part in the Children’s Crusade. The portion of her reading stated in part King’s optimism that Birmingham and the nation will reach the goal of freedom, even if the motives of those fighting nonviolently for it are misunderstood.

Kelsey also spoke Monday at Chaney High and the YWCA of Youngstown, where she shared recollections of having received nonviolence training from the Revs. James Bevel and Andrew Young in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Kelsey, who retired after 33 years as a middle school science teacher, guidance counselor and school principal, said she is grateful for having been part of the Children’s Crusade, in which an estimated 4,100 young people were arrested, largely “because it helped awaken our nation to injustices being put upon a significant portion of our population. It taught us change could occur in a peaceful way if we organize ourselves.”

THREE STUDENTS

The readers also included Chaney High School students Katherine Abrego, Terra Robbins and Lilly Snider, who returned a few weeks ago from the annual Sojourn to the Past eight-day traveling American history bus journey to key civil rights sites in the South.

The three students cited portions of the letter in which King talks about how what affects one community impacts others, denounces the “outside agitator” concept espoused by many racists, the four pivotal steps in a nonviolent campaign and the necessity of tension as a phase in working toward exposing injustices.

The final reader was Judge Anthony D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The letter ends with King humbly expressing a desire to meet the eight white clergymen while encouraging them to stay strong in their faith.

“Let us hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not-too-distant tomorrow, the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty,” it concludes.

“If you listen to his letter, Dr. King was speaking to us today,” said Penny Wells, Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past’s executive director. “Each of us has the power to make a difference. Dr. King has given us our marching orders: Don’t be a silent witness; speak out when you see a wrong.”

‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ excerpts

• “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.”

• “An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey, but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. … A just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.”

• “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustices, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”