Larry Langford, the mayor of the city of Birmingham, Alabama, has declared today, Friday April 25th, 2008 as a "day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes" in response to the city's high homicide rates:

Birmingham Weekly reported two weeks ago that the mayor purchased 2,000 burlap sacks for ministers and other community leaders to wear at a Plan 10/30 summit.
To many Christians, sackcloth and ashes symbolize humility and repentance, but the mayor’s decree came dressed with the usual accoutrements - printed on fine, invitation-stock paper and wrapped in a bright silver folder, adorned by the magic hat logo Langford commissioned for the city last year.

In the decree, Langford said that Birmingham’s crime problem “pails” (sic) in comparison to the biblical City of Nineveh.

The proclamation tells the Bible story of Jonah and the city of Nineveh: “Whereas Chapter 3, verse 5 & 6, of the Book of Jonah, Old Testament states, that the people of Nineveh believe God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them,” the resolution reads.

In the proclamation, the mayor puts himself parallel with the King of Nineveh (Jonah 3:7) who, wearing sackcloth and ashes, joined his citizens in prayer.

Link | Article at The Birmingham News - Thanks Charles K!

(Photo: acnatta [Flickr] - Thanks Andre!)