Isn't it ironic a letter written over twenty years ago, has as much significance today as it did during the time when the author was protesting racial injustice. The author is Martin Luther King Jr. and the letter is "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail" (The Norton Reader, 16th Edition p. 455).

We're sure the majority of the Penn State community is aware of this letter, and some even know why he wrote it and what were the circumstances surrounding it. In King's letter, several important points are made, when injustice is not solved by negotiation.

King stated in paragraph eight of his letter, "As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. 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."

These statements he made we believe reflect the feelings of the Black PSU community. What we would also like to express is King's views on when there is a necessity for nonviolent protest or as King called it, "direct action."

Paragraph six is what we feel is the basic guidelines for handling injustice appropriately. In the first sentence of that paragraph King writes, "In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of facts to determine whether injustice exists, negotiation; self-purification; and direct action."

Until the incidents that have occurred leading to the protests, this problem of racism has been handled with little urgency. As long as racism is kept quiet is it okay? Those derogatory pictures show that racism is real and not a figment of our imagination.

We are now faced with the same question King stated in paragraph 10, ". . . Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path? You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue."

On Feb. 16th, some people viewed the actions of Black students openly protesting against the presence of injustice on PSU as counterproductive, and offensive. What is counterproductive and offensive is racism in 1989.

It is hard to comprehend that in a liberal and well educated society such as ours we find ourselves in the midst of a problem that has once again managed to denigrate a race of people.

We would like to close with the statement that millions and millions of Jewish people died at the hands of people whose attitudes started out this way. This is not an isolated incident that affects only one race, but it affects all humans directly or indirectly.