3
The Highlander Folk School seems like a wonderful place. I am looking forward with eager anticipation to attending the workshop, hoping to make a contribution to the fulfillment of complete freedom for all people.
—Rosa Parks, July 6, 1955
As 1954 dawned, Martin Luther King Jr. was aggressively pursuing various job opportunities. He had just completed his coursework and examination requirements for his doctorate at Boston University and hoped to find a teaching or pastoral position to support both himself and his wife while finishing his dissertation. Although tempted by academic opportunities, he preferred to begin his career as a pastor. Through Dexter Avenue Baptist Church deacon Robert Nesbitt, King received an invitation to preach a sermon at the historic Montgomery church, which was without a pastor following the departure of Vernon Johns. The day before he was scheduled to preach, he traveled from Atlanta to Montgomery with an unexpected passenger: Vernon Johns. The former Dexter pastor was preaching at Ralph Abernathy’s First Baptist Church the following morning.1
As the men drove, they passed within a few miles of the campus of Tuskegee Institute, where that very day NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall was delivering a keynote address for the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Attendees packed the chapel to hear the lawyer who had argued the pending Brown v. Board of Education case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall asserted that segregation was coming to an end, while also admitting that many southerners were willing to go to great lengths to impede any challenge to white supremacy, as evidenced by those “talking about calling out the militia and using other drastic measures.” He challenged his audience to “overcome the stigma of second class citizenship in our own minds. There must be a willingness on the part of those who have college training and those who have money to help those who have neither.” Although King did not hear Marshall’s challenge, Montgomery was the type of place where he could demonstrate a willingness to make a contribution by going to the front line of the civil rights struggle.2
Several men and women in Alabama’s capital city were already pushing for substantive change. Some were even considering a boycott of city buses should white authorities not ensure better treatment for the African Americans who depended on public transit. Although King was not yet sure where he would serve, he was ready to do his part. In Montgomery, King would have the opportunity to rub shoulders with men and women who had been making a contribution to the freedom struggle for years. He would learn a great deal from them, and he would be emboldened by their courage and commitment. King would also provide a message of hope and become a much-needed bridge between the black economic classes in Montgomery. Before King could speak words that could move a nation, he had to first learn to use the spoken word to move a congregation and a community.
King decided to deliver one of his tested sermons, “The Dimensions of a Complete Life,” for the Dexter congregation. Knowing he would be evaluated on how well he preached, he was nervous: “That Saturday evening as I began going over my sermon, I was aware of a certain anxiety. Although I had preached many times before—having served as associate pastor of my father’s church in Atlanta for four years, and having done all of the preaching there for three successive summers—I was very conscious this time that I was on trial.” King knew the reputation of the Dexter congregation: relatively wealthy, educated, discriminating. Despite all of his experience behind the pulpit, he found himself wondering, “How could I best impress the congregation?” King’s sermon called on the congregation to make positive contributions in the lives of others: “The prayer that every man should learn to pray is, ‘Lord teach me to unselfishly serve humanity.’ No man should become so involved in his personal ambitions that he forgets that other people exist in the world. Indeed if my life’s work is not developed for the good of humanity, it is meaningless and Godless.” Should King become the pastor of Dexter, he served notice that he would insist that the congregation resist the temptation to focus inwardly. As was the case in most southern cities during the 1950s, African American professionals faced the temptation to put caution first. King challenged them to elevate their commitment to the needs of others no matter what the cost.3
Following King’s trip to Montgomery, Dexter’s pulpit committee recommended that the congregation call King to serve as their next pastor, and the members unanimously supported the selection. The committee asked him to return so they could discuss the details of their offer. He made his way back to the racially divided city of Montgomery still unsure if he and his wife, Coretta, were ready to return to the South. The circumstances surrounding Miss Ophelia Hill’s funeral demonstrate the racial climate the Kings would encounter should they answer Dexter’s call. Hill, who served for over a quarter century as the supervisor of Montgomery’s African American schools, was a member of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. When she died, her largely white church refused to hold her funeral services, so her white rector officiated at the funeral service in a local Colored Methodist Episcopal church. Some of the pews in the church were labeled with signs reading, “Reserved for white friends.” Such incidents led Alabama native Virginia Durr, who had recently returned to the state after over a decade in Washington, D.C., to describe Montgomery as a place of “death, decay, corruption, frustration, bitterness and sorrow. The Lost Cause is right.” White supremacy was the dominant reality that affected the daily lives of black and white alike. Following nearly six years studying in the North, the King family had to assess the cost of reentering the heart of Dixie.4
A few days before King’s return trip, an article appeared in the town’s African American newspaper that further demonstrated racial tension in Montgomery. African American pastor and Alabama State College student Uriah J. Fields wrote to denounce the unequal treatment blacks continually received on city buses. He noted overcrowding on routes that serviced African American sections of town and lamented the way fares were collected from black riders. He also complained that African Americans often had “to stand up on buses when there are vacant seats in the front.” Fields challenged drivers to treat black female riders with dignity and kindness. After calling for immediate organization against those who perpetuate degrading treatment on the buses, Fields laid out the following five recommendations:
1. Provide buses on any given route in proportion to the population of bus riders in that area.
2. Apply the rule “first come, first served” in seating passengers. Especially on buses serving in predominantly Negro areas.
3. Forbid bus drivers from insisting or even requesting that Negroes enter the bus through the back door.
4. Hire qualified Negroes for the position of bus driver.
5. It is further recommended that a course or a period of orientation be given each bus driver on chivalry.5
Fields’s sentiments were not new, and they were not his alone. Members of the Women’s Political Council (WPC) and Pullman porter E. D. Nixon shared Fields’s frustrations. WPC president Jo Ann Robinson, wrote a letter to Montgomery mayor W. A. Gayle, offering her reflections on a recent meeting with city commissioners. The WPC had made three specific requests regarding city buses: that blacks fill seats from the back, and whites from the front, until all seats are taken; that blacks not have to exit and reenter in the back after paying; and that buses stop at every block in residential African American neighborhoods, as was the case in white sections of town. While Robinson reported progress on the number of stops many buses were making, the city had failed to address their seating and boarding concerns. Robinson then added: “More and more of our people are already arranging with neighbors and friends to ride to keep from being insulted and humiliated by bus drivers. There has even been talk from twenty-five or more organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses.”6
The letters by Fields and Robinson reveal not only the level of frustration over inequities in Montgomery, but also a willingness to speak up about the problems and to engage the city in seeking solutions. They also demonstrate different priorities among those seeking racial justice in the city. Although Fields’s letter included as an important demand the hiring of black bus drivers, Robinson’s letter failed to mention a desire for the bus company to employ African American drivers. This seemingly minor divergence in priorities would remain a source of contention over the coming years, as leaders never unified around clear economic initiatives that would benefit the working class. Nevertheless, local activists were already contemplating bold tactics to challenge white supremacy as King returned to the city to negotiate the terms of his employment at Dexter.
The pulpit committee asked King to preach again during his second visit to Dexter. In his sermon titled “Going Forward by Going Backward,” he offered a harsh critique of society, which had pursued knowledge and materialism while neglecting timeless moral principles and a devotion to God that could transform the world into a “brotherhood.” Despite the destructive impulses of humanity, King urged the people of Dexter to cling to hope based on a firm belief in the ultimate triumph of justice and righteousness. Should King answer the call to Dexter, he intended to contribute to the local struggle by reminding his congregation to place their trust in God as they moved forward. King’s belief in the limitless power of God led him to articulate a message of hope even amidst Montgomery’s dehumanizing conditions.7
The possibilities at Dexter had piqued King’s interest, leading him to accept the offer to become the church’s pastor. He returned to Montgomery on May 2, 1954, and preached a version of “Accepting Responsibility for Your Actions.” King encouraged his listeners to not allow the excuses of heredity or environment to determine their lives, but instead to focus on their own responses to life’s challenges. Among his examples of those who had achieved despite hindrances were African American singers Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes as well as Abraham Lincoln. King tempered his previous emphasis on the individual and put his new congregation on notice regarding the type of leadership he would provide: “I happen to be a firm believer in what is called the ‘social gospel.’” King’s written manuscript does not flesh out his definition of the term, but he did emphasize the necessity of pursuing “social reform.” While King’s theological and social views broadened and sharpened during his years in seminary and graduate school, his basic concern for the goals of social change remained consistent. His commitment to the social gospel would move from theory to practice in the years ahead.8
After the sermon, King delivered an acceptance address to his new congregation, noting, “I come to the pastorate of Dexter at a most crucial hour of our world’s history.” The challenges of war and the anxieties of the modern industrialized world had led many to turn to the church. To be ready for those seeking direction and hope in a time of uncertainty, King prescribed an agenda of moral uplift, calling his parishioners to “lead men and women of a decadent generation to the high mountain of peace and salvation.” He also evidenced a self-effacing quality, claiming he was neither a “great preacher” nor a “profound scholar” and came with “nothing so special to offer.” Nevertheless, he closed the address with confidence: “I come with a feeling that I’ve been called to preach and to lead God’s people.” Just as Jesus had began his public ministry as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, King called upon the words of Isaiah 61 to conclude his address: “I have felt with Jesus that the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bruised.” King’s first few sermons and acceptance address reveal the Gospel he would preach at Dexter. He proclaimed an optimistic message of hope rooted in the power of God that ought to inspire people to boldly challenge injustice and tirelessly serve those in greatest need.9
King came to Montgomery during a time of social change and polarization on both the local and national scene. One day after King’s acceptance address, city police added African American officers to the force for the first time. The proposal had been considered for over a year, and the impetus for the policy came out of a political deal brokered by E. D. Nixon and Montgomery public safety commissioner Dave Birmingham prior to his 1953 election. Birmingham, whose appeal was primarily to the newer, white working-class citizens of Montgomery, recognized the need to court the black vote in his election against his old-guard opponent. Nixon agreed he would deliver the African American vote for Birmingham if the city commission candidate promised to hire black police officers. True to his word, a few weeks after the election, Birmingham brought the issue before the city commissioners for the first time.10
In December 1953, following a meeting with black leaders and Mayor Gayle, Birmingham explained the delay in securing African American officers: “We’ve been talking about the idea in Montgomery for two years, but the Grand Jury recommended the project only about six or eight weeks ago, and of course no provision was made for it in the 1954 budget. As soon as physically and financially possible, we will entertain the idea of putting on Negro policemen in Negro districts.” Aware of the potential political ramifications of his lobbying on this issue, Birmingham also sought to ameliorate the concerns of Montgomery’s white citizens, stating, “If Negroes are added to the force they will not make arrests except in those areas to which they are specifically assigned.”11
A few months later, Mayor Gayle finally announced the city’s decision to employ four black police officers. He was quick to qualify the new policy: “I would like to emphasize that the colored policemen will be screened very carefully by the City Commission. They will be hired on a trial basis. The Negro officers will be used only in the Negro sections of Montgomery and will arrest colored people. White people will be arrested by colored police only under the most extreme, emergency circumstances.” Given the caveats offered by Mayor Gayle and Commissioner Birmingham, the only response published on the Montgomery Advertiser editorial page was positive. A few weeks later, the city swore in its first four black officers. In the fall of 1954, the number of African American police officers grew to seven when three black women joined the force.12
Soon after King’s acceptance address, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first Brown v. Board of Education decision, declaring school segregation unconstitutional. During a time when this ruling was fresh in the minds and hearts of blacks throughout the South, King commuted from Boston to Montgomery a few times a month throughout the summer as he continued to work on his dissertation. When he preached, King urged his new congregation to take courageous stands for justice, while criticizing the cowardice and hypocrisy of whites regarding issues of race. In a sermon titled “Mental and Spiritual Slavery,” King explored the biblical story of the Roman ruler Pilate, who chose to conform to the wishes of the crowd by handing Jesus over to be crucified. King compared Pilate’s silence to that of most whites in the South. It could not have escaped King, however, that his congregation included many who felt daily pressure to conform to white southern mores. They believed that their jobs, the well-being of their families, and even their lives depended on acquiescing to the status quo. King also knew that his predecessor at Dexter had consistently challenged the congregation to display greater courage in challenging racism. While King lacked some of Johns’s rougher edges, he echoed Johns’s challenge: “Most people today are in Pilate’s shoes i.e. conformist. Most people would take stands on their ideas but they are afraid of being non-conformist.” King later added, “Take the minister choosing between truth and keeping in with their members and being popular with the brethren.” He called his parishioners to not allow their timidity to derail progress at this critical hour, noting that “the great progressive moves of history have been ruined by the perpetuity of ‘Pilateness.’” For a congregation filled with African American teachers and professors whose jobs were in the hands of white government officials, nonconformity came with a price. King let his congregation know early on that he expected them to be willing to pay the price necessary to not hold back a “great progressive move of history.”13
During his first summer at Dexter, King did not shy away from attacking segregation. He made it clear that he intended the congregation to be a socially engaged church that was not afraid to directly challenge white racism. He called into question the validity of a Christianity that includes those “who lynch Negroes,” noting the “strongest advocators of segregation in America also worship Christ.” The following week King shifted his focus to the responsibility his congregation must take in bringing substantive change to Montgomery: “Man is body as well as soul, and any religion that pretends to care for the souls of people but is not interested in the slums that damn them, the city government that corrupts them, and the economic order that cripples them, is a dry, passive do nothing religion in need of new blood.” King envisioned a socially engaged congregation that would meet challenges and obstacles head on, suggesting that “unless we preach the social gospel our evangelistic gospel will be meaningless.” As he became more comfortable with his new congregation, King would continue to lobby for community transformation as part of God’s call on the people of Dexter. Even before he took up residence in Montgomery, King was already making a contribution through powerful homilies intended to inspire his new congregation to courageously join their race’s struggle for freedom.14
In September 1954, Martin and Coretta Scott King relocated from Boston to Montgomery, setting up residence in the church’s parsonage several blocks from the church. With the move, King assumed his role as the full-time pastor of Dexter. Meanwhile, the first school year following the Brown decision began. Although the Supreme Court would not issue implementation orders on their ruling until 1955, a few were determined to test the decision much sooner. At the dawn of the 1954–1955 academic year, E. D. Nixon and Southern Farmer editor Aubrey Williams attempted to enroll twenty-three African American children in an all-white school, filing a lawsuit on their behalf. Nixon later claimed he “was the first man anywhere in the United States to lead a group of black children into an all-white school. That was at the William Harrison School—ain’t ten minutes’ drive from here—out on the bypass. They wouldn’t let them stay, but I carried them there.” The local African American paper also credited Aubrey Williams for displaying “Christian courage and the finest sense of democratic responsibility” in his attempt to assist parents in enrolling their children in the nearest and best public schools that fall. During King’s first week in town, Williams and Nixon proved willing to take action by directly challenging Jim Crow segregation.15
In his first sermon following the move, King preached on one of his favorite subjects: love. In examining the nature of God’s love, he noted that it is “too broad to be limited to a particular race. It is too big to be wrapped in a particularlistic [sic] garment. It is too great to be encompassed by any single nation. God is a universal God. This fact has been a ray of hope and has given a sense of belonging to hundreds of disinherited people.” To display the encouragement that God’s love can bring, King cited “the illustration of the old slave preacher,” a story found in a tape-recorded version of this sermon years later: “This is what the old slave preacher used to say. He didn’t have his grammar right but he knew God, and he would stand before the people caught in the dark night of slavery with nothing to look forward to the next morning but the long row of cotton ahead, the sizzling heat, and the rawhide whip of the overseer. He would stand up before them after they had worked from camp to cane. He said now, ‘You ain’t no slave. You ain’t no nigger. But you’re God’s child.’” Following this illustration, King told his Dexter congregation, “All of the hate in the world cannot destroy the universal effect of God’s love.” In the face of the absurd hatred and exclusion blacks experienced every day in Montgomery, King pointed to the power of God’s love as the source of sanity and dignity for “God’s love is redemptive.” King’s enduring faith in the transforming and redemptive possibilities of love proved to be an unwavering conviction of his public ministry.16
A few days after moving to Montgomery, King attended the National Baptist Convention in St. Louis, where he delivered an address before the women’s auxiliary. Despite the unsuccessful effort to integrate Montgomery’s public schools, King offered an optimistic speech trumpeting the inevitability of racial progress, desegregation, and social change: “Ultimately history brings into being the new order to blot out the tragic reign of the old order.” During his first year at Dexter, King continued to believe that “the tide has turned” and “segregation is passing away.” On the ground in Montgomery, however, dissatisfaction with the degrading effects of segregation grew. Whether inspired by optimism in the wake of the Brown decision or simply fed up with the racial status quo, several people in the city were ready to stand up and be counted in the fight for true freedom.17
At the front of the line, as had been the case for several decades, was E. D. Nixon. In addition to his attempt to register black students in white schools, he also became the first African American since the beginning of the twentieth century to run for public office in a Montgomery County Democratic primary. Although he lost the race, he continued to set a bold example for blacks by challenging any so-called restrictions imposed by white society. During the summer of 1954, Nixon was named the chairperson of a voter registration effort for the 2nd Congressional District in Alabama. In his remarks at the organization’s meeting, Nixon vowed to “lead the fight to open the way for Negro voting.” In homage to Nixon’s efforts in 1954, the “colored section” of the Montgomery Advertiser named him Montgomery’s “Man of the Year.”18
Despite Nixon’s activism, most African American men avoided overt challenges to Montgomery’s racist laws and mores. As a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters whose job was not tied to the local community, Nixon was less vulnerable to economic retribution by local whites. Those whose service jobs depended on the goodwill of local white businessmen could not afford to share Nixon’s boldness. According to Jo Ann Robinson, many black men stopped riding the city buses during this period, fearing the abuse and humiliation they so often received from bus drivers. They also were tired of feeling powerless while drivers disrespected and mistreated African American women. According to Robinson, “at no time did a single man ever stand up in defense of the women.” Men were more vulnerable to economic and physical reprisals if they stepped out of their place, as often families depended on income from their jobs to make ends meet. Any overt protest, if discovered, could easily lead to the loss of a job, a price that was simply too high for most to pay. So, “if they were on the bus when trouble started, they merely got up and got off.” Confronted with perpetual repression, many working-class black males chose to avoid confrontations altogether.19
King never had to ride the buses in Montgomery. Although he undoubtedly heard about the community’s concerns over the bus situation, his earliest impressions of the city were from a broader perspective. He noticed the heavy influence of the Maxwell and Gunter Air Force bases, which employed roughly 7 percent of the city’s workforce and, according to chamber of commerce reports, pumped over $50 million into the city’s economy each year. King could not help but notice that while these bases had such a significant economic impact on the region, they operated under different social rules than the city did: “the bases, which contributed so much to the economic life of the community, were fully integrated,” but “the city around them adhered to a rigorous pattern of racial segregation.” King also encountered a divided black community, particularly among the leadership. He became aware of the many subgroups, programs, organizations, and competing personalities that stifled any significant efforts to bring about change. King admired the individual leaders but surmised, “While the heads of each of these organizations were able and dedicated leaders with common aims, their separate allegiances made it difficult for them to come together on the basis of a higher unity.”20
Although King did not have an answer to the divisions that beset Montgomery’s black community, he was determined that both he and his congregants would make a contribution to the local struggle. King’s series of recommendations for Dexter, written during his first week as a resident of Montgomery, emphasized the central role of the pastor in church polity. Claiming that a pastor’s authority flows both from God and from the people, he asserted that a call to serve as pastor affirms “the unconditional willingness of the people to accept the pastor’s leadership,” which means “leadership never ascends from the pew to the pulpit, but it invariably descends from the pulpit to the pew.” In King’s view, a pastor should “never be considered a mere puppet for the whimsical and capricious mistreatment of those who wish to show their independence, and ‘use their liberty for a cloak of maliciousness.’”21
These early statements by King have been cited by some to argue that King was not interested in the voices of the average people, but instead operated from a “top-down” understanding of leadership. Many of these assessments of King’s leadership drawn from this particular speech fail to account for the larger context that King was entering. In general, new ministers often find themselves in precarious positions. Church boards are filled with volunteers who are not easily replaced. Particularly in the Baptist church polity, deacon boards held a tremendous amount of sway, especially during the first few years of a pastor’s tenure, before the minister could develop loyalty and strong relationships with the people. In this speech, King was attempting to emphasize the trust they placed in him by voting him in as pastor, and to underscore his authority through an appeal to a divine sanction of his position.22
King also believed his bold statements regarding his authority were warranted given the reputation Dexter had earned over the years. Known as a “deacons’ church,” many ministers in the National Baptist Convention believed Dexter’s board was heavy-handed when dealing with their pastors. When one of Daddy King’s friends found out that King Jr. was considering assuming the pastorate at Dexter, the friend said: “Mike, there’s one man on the board at Dexter to watch out for. He may be dead by now, but if he is still alive, don’t you go there, because he’ll give you hell.” When King learned that Deacon Thomas H. Randall was not only very much alive, but served as chair of the deacons, he came to the church expecting difficulties. The level of trust was so low between pastors and deacons at Dexter that, during King’s first year, Deacon Randall is said to have kept a notebook on King in which he recorded any misdeeds, shortcomings, and complaints from the people. King’s proposals represented a strategic attempt to wrest some control of the congregation from the deacon board.23
King made thirty-four recommendations to his new congregation, among which was the creation of a social and political action committee. Arguing that “the gospel of Jesus is a social gospel as well as a personal gospel seeking to save the whole man,” King developed this new group to keep “the congregation intelligently informed concerning the social, political and economic situation.” King gave the new committee the responsibility of highlighting the work of the local NAACP and helping make sure that “every member of Dexter” would become “a registered voter.” The roster of those appointed to serve the congregation through this new vessel included Mary Fair Burks as chair, Jo Ann Robinson as co-chair, and Rufus Lewis as a committee member. Rather than inspire new social activism in the lives of committee members, this new group provided a platform in the church to trumpet the causes about which committee members were already passionate. In later reflections regarding the formation of the Social and Political Action Committee, King admitted: “I sought members for this committee who had already evinced an interest in social problems, and who had some prior experience in this area. Fortunately this was not a difficult task, for Dexter had several members who were deeply concerned about community problems, and who accepted with alacrity.”24
King’s decision to launch a social and political action committee demonstrates his desire to move beyond rhetoric to launch specific actions in the struggle for civil rights. King also knew he had ready allies in those who would serve on this nascent committee. He provided space and a platform within Dexter for those who were already very much involved in the struggle in the broader community. He would also learn from the boldness of his parishioners, who were already outspoken leaders. Inspired by their courage, he hoped others at Dexter would share in his admiration of Lewis, Robinson, and Burks by getting more involved in the freedom struggle.
From all indications, the Social and Political Action Committee went to work immediately. Their second report consisted of a voting survey issued to the congregation. Coretta Scott King filled out one of the forms, indicating that she was not a registered voter because she had “not been living in the state for the last nine years.” She did express a desire to become a registered voter, and when asked how the committee could help her in this process, she wrote: “Would like to know when I can register. Also I would like a copy of State laws.” A few weeks later, the committee produced a third report for the church in an attempt to update the congregation on voting issues on the eve of the November gubernatorial elections. The document emphasized the importance of paying one’s poll tax and also warned those who registered before 1950 that they needed to fill out a reidentification form. Intended to help inform voters on key issues on the ballot, the committee urged “every qualified voter to go to the polls on election day, no matter how seemingly insignificant the election may be. Your vote may mean the difference between the defeat or victory of some issue that might vitally affect your welfare. GO TO THE POLLS NOVEMBER 2, TAKE A NEIGHBOR ALONG WITH YOU, AND FRIENDS AS WELL!”25
King knew one of the best ways to inspire his congregation to get involved in the community was through his sermons. After his move from Boston, King finally had the opportunity to get comfortable with preaching weekly. He took the task seriously, often spending well over fifteen hours a week in preparation. He described his routine as follows: “I usually began an outline on Tuesday. On Wednesday I did the necessary research and thought of illustrative material and life situations that would give the sermon practical content. On Friday I began writing and usually finished the writing on Saturday night.” King’s first year and a half at Dexter marked the only time in his pastoral career that his schedule allowed him to focus significant attention to the development and delivery of his weekly sermons.26
Many Dexter members had vivid memories of King’s preaching. Thelma Rice recognized the high quality of both the content and presentation of his sermons: “I was impressed with the command that he had over what he wanted to say and the way he said it, with conviction.” Another parishioner, Mrs. O. B. Underwood, called young King “an outstanding preacher.” She remembered resistance to his messages as well, however: “Many people didn’t like his way of delivering Sunday morning messages. But most of the younger people and certainly most of his friends were very much in accord with his thoughts.” She admired his directness: “the way he was able to deliver a message, it always hit, and it probably hit too hard. We used to laugh about many of the messages because you could sit in the back of the church and point out certain people that you knew said, ‘looks like this message was aimed at that particular person.’” Underwood summarized King’s early sermons as having strong religious and social content, while also being “easily understood by all.” She was also impressed with King’s delivery: “His voice was soothing; he could gain your attention almost immediately; you didn’t wander when he was speaking; you listened when he was speaking, whether it was a mass meeting or a church service or a social gathering, feeling extremely elated.” Dexter member Alfreida Dean Thomas concurred, noting: “I was closest to him, I would say, if you were speaking in a spiritual sense, during the sermons in church. I just always felt that everything that he said was directly related to me, as well as the other people, but very, very directly related to me and very much an influence on my life.”27
During the fall of 1954, King’s sermons continued to touch on social and political topics. As a new pastor, he also had an ambitious agenda for church growth. One of his conditions for accepting the position was that his compensation would increase as the church grew, and increased numbers would certainly bolster his worth in the eyes of his new congregation. In one early sermon, King challenged his listeners to actively proselytize others in the community if they truly believed “Christianity has the power to give new meaning to life.” As they shared Jesus’ good news, King encouraged them to be prepared to “defend the Church where necessary.” His recommendations to the church included programs that would attract a larger membership, and he intentionally espoused greater evangelistic fervor from the pulpit.28
King also pushed his congregation to engage their community in new and daring ways. Believing the timeliness of movements was a critical element in their success, King lamented those who had struggled and come up short in the past, citing the “vision of racial equality” of the former vice president and 1948 presidential candidate Henry Wallace as an example of a movement that was ahead of its time. “On the other hand,” King noted, “there are times when history is ready to accept a new event.” In King’s view, the people of Montgomery were living in such a time. The question for the congregation and its new pastor was whether they would passionately commit themselves to the task at hand.29
As King began to settle into his role as Dexter’s pastor, he was making a favorable impression on the broader African American community in Montgomery. Early in 1955, the local NAACP met at the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church in Montgomery. In opening comments, W. C. Patton, the state conference president, updated the members on the status of the Jeremiah Reeves case, including a proposal for the Montgomery branch to pay attorney fees for the death-row inmate. The group also voted to vigorously oppose a segregated inaugural ball for Governorelect Folsom to be held at Alabama State College. King delivered the address for the event, in which he encouraged newly installed officers to recognize that, “while we have come a long way,” there is still “a long way to go.” He also applauded the chapter’s condemnation of the segregated inaugural ball. Years later, E. D. Nixon recalled hearing King speak for the first time: “King spoke to the NAACP in the Metropolitan Church. Me and [Alabama State University professor J. E.] Pierce was sitting back in the back of the church, and when King got through talking I said to Pierce, I said, ‘Pierce, that guy makes a heck of a good speech.’ He said, ‘He sure did.’ I said, ‘Pierce, I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but some day I’m going to hang him to the stars.’” King also impressed future Montgomery Improvement Association leader Johnnie Carr: “He just got up and made a few remarks after he had been introduced by Mr. Robert Nesbitt. Rosa [Parks] and I were there and I just turned around and said, ‘Listen to that. He’s something, isn’t he?’ The flow of his words and the way that he expressed them while talking about ordinary things. We discovered something in him that just made him seem a little bit different from others.”30
The decision to have segregated balls to celebrate Governor-elect Folsom’s inauguration prompted Uriah J. Fields to write a letter to the editor in which he called such segregation “undemocratic and unjustified.” Fields noted that “many Negroes cast their votes for him, standing in the same lines with their white friends and using the same voting machines.” A delegate to the 1952 Republican Convention in Chicago, he appealed to his experiences there as a model for Alabama: “I had the privilege of attending that ball along with other American citizens. Why can’t I and other Negroes do the same for our incoming governor in this great state of Alabama?” Although Fields’s attempt to persuade white southern Democrats by appealing to the practices of the Republican Party was ill-conceived at best, his letter does demonstrate a growing willingness by many African Americans to let whites know how they felt about racial discrimination.31
At Dexter, the Social and Political Action Committee continued to educate the congregation regarding voting requirements, regulations, and important dates. Sixteen church members attended registration clinics sponsored by the committee, and through a newsletter they highlighted the upcoming city commission election. An editorial in the newsletter championed the cause of a newly formed African American organization in the city, the Citizens Coordinating Committee. The article celebrated the new organization, noting that it was “composed of all the organizations of the city of Montgomery, whether civic, political, cultural, social or religious,” and that the group formed “to provide a medium for cooperative efforts among all groups” with specific attention “placed on economic cooperation.” King, who believed African Americans in Montgomery were too divided, later reflected on the promise of this new venture: “I can remember the anticipation with which I attended the first meeting of this group, feeling here the Negro community had an answer to a problem that had stood too long as a stumbling block to social progress.” The organization did not last long, however, as personality conflicts and turf wars prevented any substantive coordination. King remembered: “Due to a lack of tenacity on the part of the leaders and of active interest on the part of the citizens in general, the Citizens Coordinating Committee finally dissolved. With the breakdown of this promising undertaking, it appeared that the tragic division in the Negro community could be cured only by some divine miracle.” Even as the battle lines were forming in Montgomery, the African American community was unable to join together to speak and act with one voice in order to achieve social change.32
A lack of cohesiveness did not slow down the leaders of the Women’s Political Council. During January 1955, they met with the city commissioners, seeking to broker additional gains following the hiring of black police officers the previous year. The group requested spots on the city’s Parks and Recreation Board, as they hoped to eventually integrate the city’s park system. While the commissioners did not provide the desired response to their demands, Mayor Gayle did take this opportunity to praise the work of the city’s African American police officers. If they could not secure action from current elected officials, many blacks in Montgomery were ready to invest significant energy into electing the next city commissioners at the polls in March.33
Nixon, who had run for public office the previous year, helped lead the charge for a more politically engaged African American populace. In a letter penned in early February, Virginia Durr took note of Nixon’s bold leadership, calling him “the most effective and bravest fighter for equal rights” in the city. She emphasized the external support he received from his union (the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) and the NAACP that allowed him to persevere despite perpetual resistance by those in power. Durr concluded that Nixon had “more support on a national basis than any man in Montgomery, and is more effective politically than any other Negro here.” Nixon joined forces with the WPC in an attempt to further engage the broader African American community in the upcoming local elections. They also hoped prospective office holders would hear and respond to the concerns of Montgomery’s black population.34
On February 23, some of the city’s African American leaders invited the city commission candidates to a forum hosted at the Ben Moore Hotel. When the candidates arrived, forum organizers presented them with a list of eight “urgent needs” that demanded “immediate attention.” The black community asked the politicians to offer a response to each issue, beginning with “the present bus situation.” Other concerns included a request for black representation on the Parks and Recreation Board, the need for a new subdivision for African American housing, jobs for qualified blacks in the community (concerning which they noted “everybody can not teach”), black representation on all boards affecting black citizens, a need for fire hydrants in congested areas, a dearth of sewage disposals in black neighborhoods, and the prevalence of narrow streets without curbing or pavement in many African American sections of Montgomery. The sheet concluded: “What will you do to improve these undemocratic practices? Your stand on these issues will enable us to better decide on whom we shall cast our ballot in the March election. Very truly yours, Montgomery Negroes.”35
Amazingly, all of the candidates attended the meeting. Mayor William “Tacky” Gayle was noncommittal on the issues the African American community raised, as was candidate George Cleere. Dave Birmingham, Frank Parks, and the mayoral candidate Harold McGlynn did agree to appoint a black representative to the Parks and Recreation Board. Clyde C. Sellers, a candidate for public safety commissioner, gave a general speech but avoided addressing specifics. None of the candidates dealt with the bus situation, which was the number-one concern on the list. Nor did any engage any of the economic problems or quality of life issues that affected the daily lives of working-class and poor blacks in Montgomery.36
A few weeks later, Sellers took out a large advertisement in the Montgomery Advertiser in which he offered his answers to the concerns raised in the meeting. Regarding the bus situation, Sellers wrote: “There is a state law which requires segregation of passengers on public conveyances. I feel that there should ALWAYS be seats available for BOTH races on our buses.” Unwilling to offer seats on any city board to African Americans, Sellers offered to “gladly work with their representatives in an attempt to establish a negro park and expanded recreational facilities in Montgomery.” He flatly rejected the suggestion that a new black housing development be located in the rapidly expanding Lincoln Heights community. While not opposed to new homes for blacks, he worried that the lack of adequate African American schools in the Lincoln Heights area “would lead to dissatisfaction and dissention,” leading him to conclude “NEVER in Lincoln Heights.” Regarding the request that blacks be eligible for any civil service job for which they were qualified, the candidate proclaimed: “There ARE places in this nation where civil service jobs for negroes in cities are available, but not in Montgomery. I will expand [sic] every effort to keep it that way.” Sellers ended his advertisement with these words: “I have answered these questions exactly the way I feel. I have many friends among the negroes of Montgomery and I will be fair and honest with them in all our contacts, yet I will not compromise my principles nor violate my Southern birthright to promise something I do not intend to do. I will not be intimidated for the sake of a block of negro votes. I come to you not seeking your votes with wild promises, but with positive and constructive program, based on my training and experience in the fields of business and law enforcement.” Sellers coupled this advertisement with what one historian described as “the most blatantly and insistently racist addresses heard in Montgomery since the days of J. Johnston Moore, the Ku Klux Klan’s candidate against Mayor Gunter in the 1920s.” Sellers’s commitment to a “no-compromise” approach with the city’s African Americans led him to a victory in the commission elections, as he outpaced the incumbent Dave Birmingham 43 percent to 37 percent.37
During March, the election took a back seat in the minds and hearts of many black citizens when word spread that police had arrested a teenage girl for violating the segregation statutes on city buses. Claudette Colvin, a student at Booker T. Washington High School, refused to stand when ordered to get up from her seat to accommodate a white passenger. When an officer came to forcibly remove Colvin from the bus, she resisted. Women’s Political Council member A. W. West remembered: “she fought like a little tigress. The policeman had scars all over his face.” Clifford Durr supported the local black attorney Fred Gray as defense attorneys for Colvin. In the middle of the legal fight, Virginia Durr described the teenager in glowing terms, noting that she was willing to “stand her ground in the face of the big burly white bus driver, two big white policemen and one big white motor cop. They dragged her off the bus, handcuffed her, and put her in jail and the most marvelous thing about her was that the two other young Negro girls moved back, the woman by her moved back, and she was left entirely alone and still she would not move.” When Durr asked Colvin why she did not move, the girl replied, “I done paid my dime, they didn’t have no RIGHT to move me.”38
Over the next few months, Durr wrote several letters seeking support for legal expenses, as many hoped the arrest and conviction might become a test case that would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. When Durr pleaded for financial support for the Colvin case from friends around the country, she asked that checks be sent to Mrs. Rosa Parks. When the case went before the circuit court in early May, the authorities elected to try Colvin on assault and battery, dropping any charges of breaking segregation laws, thus preventing the emergence of any constitutional challenge from the case. Authorities tried and convicted Colvin, placing her on a year’s probation. Summarizing the impact of the Colvin incident, Virginia Durr reflected, “this has created tremendous interest in the Negro community and made them all fighting mad and may help give them the courage to put up a real fight on the bus segregation issue.”39
According to Ralph Abernathy, the teen’s arrest added to the feeling of discontent in the African American community. In response, he was part of a group that had several meetings with city and bus officials in which they sought to “change the seating policy to a first come, first served basis; that is, with reserved seats for either group. Wherever the two races met, this would constitute the dividing line.” When city leaders claimed the suggestion could not be done according to Alabama law, black leaders asked “that they clarify the seating policy and publish it in the paper so that each person would know where his section was, so that once a Negro got on the bus and was properly seated in the Negro section he would not have to worry about getting up, giving his seat to a white passenger. After several conferences, bus officials refused to clarify this policy.” The lack of concrete action by city leaders further angered many African Americans.40
Meanwhile, as King completed his first year preaching at Dexter, he had several opportunities to speak to a broader community increasingly agitated by white leaders’ lack of concern. In sermons and speeches, he consistently encouraged his audiences not to allow anger to give rise to bitterness. In May, he accepted an invitation from Alabama State College president and Dexter Avenue Baptist Church member H. Councill Trenholm to serve as the school’s baccalaureate speaker at graduation. In the speech, King challenged the new graduates to not be prisoners of “rugged individualism and national isolationism.” He encouraged them not to settle for mediocrity in “various fields of endeavor” or to give into “hate and bitterness.” Despite the frustrations the graduates were sure to face as they entered the workforce, King called for a loving approach in the face of repression. As King heard stories of blatant racism and experienced the sting of segregation on a daily basis, he had to regularly remind Montgomery’s African American community, including himself, of the need to overcome the temptation to hate.41
In mid-June, King delivered a speech for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP titled “The Peril of Superficial Optimism in the Area of Race Relations.” Dexter clerk and former search committee chair Robert D. Nesbitt introduced King: “He is a great asset to Montgomery by his activity in everything for the betterment of the community. He has launched an intensive campaign in the church for NAACP membership and voters.” King began his address by recognizing the amazing progress that made optimism in the area of race relations much more tenable than it would have been a few years earlier. He even suggested that “segregation is dying. He is dying hard, but there is no doubt that his corpse awaits him.” King warned against complacency, noting the persistence of prejudice in the hearts of some whites and the struggles of other minorities throughout the world: “We must be concerned because we are a part of humanity. Whatever affects one affects all.” Despite the intransigence of racism, King claimed that God acted through the 1954 Brown decision, leading him to conclude “that segregation is just as dead as a doornail and the only thing I am uncertain about is how costly the segregationist will make the funeral.” King espoused this same optimism when addressing his own congregation. In a sermon titled “Discerning the Signs of History,” King claimed that “evil carries the seed of its own destruction. God spoke through nine men in 1954, on May 17. They examined the legal body of segregation and pronounced it constitutionally dead and ever since then things have been changing. We can go to places all over the South that we could not go last year.”42
Later in the summer, King delivered “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore” to his Dexter congregation. Basing his comments on Phillips Brooks’s nineteenth-century sermon “The Egyptians Dead upon the Seashore,” King admitted: “We have seen evil. We have seen it walk the streets of Montgomery.” He surmised that human history “is the history of a struggle between good and evil. In the midst of the upward climb of goodness there is the down pull of evil.” Citing the Exodus story of the parting of the Red Sea and the subsequent death of the Egyptian army, King declared: “It was a joyous daybreak that had come to end the long night of their captivity. But even more, it was the death of evil; it was the death of inhuman oppression and crushing exploitation. The death of the Egyptians upon the seashore is a glaring symbol of the ultimate doom of evil in its struggle against good.” King applied his interpretation of the Exodus story to the challenges facing his congregation:
Many years ago we were thrown into the Egypt of segregation, and our great challenge has been to free ourselves from the crippling restrictions and paralyzing effects of this vicious system. For years it looked like we would never get out of this Egypt. The Red Sea always stood before us with discouraging dimensions. But one day through a worldshaking decree by the Supreme Court of America and an awakened moral conscience of many white people, backed up by the Providence of God, the Red Sea was opened, and freedom and justice marched through to the other side. As we look back we see segregation and discrimination caught in the mighty rushing waters of historical fate.
King tempered his triumphant pronouncement, however, warning that the drowning Egyptians must have “struggled hard to survive in the Red Sea. They probably saw a log here and even a straw there, and I can imagine them reaching desperately for something as light as straw trying to survive. This is what is happening to segregation today. It is caught in the mighty Red Sea, and its advocators are reaching out for every little straw in an attempt to survive.” This desperation accounted for the flurry of absurd obstructionist laws by southern legislatures. These actions simply reinforced that “the advocators of segregation have their backs against the wall. Segregation is drowning today in the rushing waters of historical necessity.” Although the ultimate outcome was clear to King, the struggle in Montgomery was far from over.43
During the summer of 1955, a young white pastor who would prove an important ally in the ongoing struggle moved to Montgomery as the new pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church. Most whites in the city viewed Robert S. Graetz, a Caucasian pastor of an African American congregation, with suspicion. Considered outsiders by white southerners, Graetz and his family were not fully a part of the African American culture, either. As his family sought support, they “discovered quite early that there was an underground network of so-called ‘liberals’ who maintained close contact with each other.” They became friends with I. B. and Clara Rutledge, Clifford and Virginia Durr, and other whites in the area. Graetz marveled at the activism of white women: “While white men were shouting ‘Segregation forever!’ and working hard to preserve their cherished traditions, white women all over the South were working just as hard to eliminate racial prejudice and segregation. Some were quite outspoken. Mrs. Rutledge was one of the finest, a remarkable, fearless woman, who lived into her nineties.” Immediately Graetz realized that they were outsiders and intruders who posed a threat to “the societal fabric of the time. We knew that. But plenty of people around us, Negro and white, reinforced our conviction that the fabric not only needed to be changed but to be torn apart.”44
Graetz developed a relationship with Robert Hughes, who served as the state director of the integrated Alabama Council on Human Relations. The organization’s local chapter was one of the city’s few groups that brought blacks and whites together. As Graetz put it, “In the 1950s a white person taking part in an integrated organization, especially in the South, defied all social mores and jeopardized the principles that controlled every aspect of lives.” The countercultural nature of the Montgomery Council on Human Relations meant that businesspeople were reluctant to be identified with the group even if they agreed with its principles. Graetz remembers: “A few of them supported us, but they rarely came to our meetings. More commonly, wives became actively involved in our councils, while husbands took part in White Citizens Councils and other organizations working to preserve segregation.”45
A few white women did continue to work behind the scenes to challenge the racial mores of Montgomery. In a letter to Mayor Gayle, Juliette Morgan expressed her “shock and horror” regarding Police Chief Reppenthal’s recent remarks concerning black police officers: “They are just niggers doing a nigger’s job.” While Morgan recognized that her protests amount to “so much whistling at the whirlwind,” she was unwilling to “stand by and not appeal to your sense of common decency in such a case as this. If I did, I would feel like those ‘good Germans’ who stood by and did nothing all during the 1930’s.” In an addendum at the bottom of her letter to Gayle, she added, “I have long felt that there are great inconsistencies in our professions of Christianity and democracy—and our way of life.”46
As a handful of whites spoke out against Montgomery’s racism, several African Americans sought to apply direct pressure on the city regarding the integration of public schools. At a midsummer executive meeting of the NAACP, members worked on developing a petition to present to the school board in an attempt to inspire some action by the fall. Attorney Fred Gray encouraged only those parents “whose jobs will not be in jeopardy” to sign the petition. The NAACP also continued to work through the courts, filing motions for new trials in both the Jeremiah Reeves and the Claudette Colvin cases. The minutes from the July meeting also indicate that the organization’s local president, Robert L. Matthews (whom Nixon had replaced as NAACP president in 1946), nominated Martin Luther King Jr. as a candidate to serve on the executive committee, noting he had “made a great contribution to the branch, bringing in memberships and contributions.” Taking minutes at the NAACP meeting was Rosa Parks, who served as the organization’s secretary. A few weeks later, she left the city for a pivotal two-week trip to the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.47
Earlier that summer, Virginia Durr had recommended Parks, who did seamstress work for the Durr family, as an ideal delegate for a workshop on segregation that Myles Horton and the staff at Highlander had assembled. Unable to afford the workshop’s cost, Parks was granted a scholarship, prompting her to write a letter of thanks to the school’s executive secretary. In the note, she expressed her excitement regarding this opportunity: “I am looking forward with eager expectation to attending the workshop, hoping to make a contribution to the fulfillment of complete freedom for all people.” Parks had a wonderful experience at the school: “I was forty-two years old, and it was one of the few times in my life up to that point when I did not feel any hostility from white people. I experienced people of different races and backgrounds meeting together in workshops and living together in peace and harmony. I felt that I could express myself honestly.” She recalled wishing, as her time in Tennessee came to an end, that she could have stayed longer: “It was hard to leave, knowing what I was going back to.”48
Upon her return from Highlander, Parks resumed her role as secretary for the next NAACP branch meeting. At the gathering hosted by the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church, the chapter officially approved King as a new board member. They also publicized an upcoming Women’s Day Program during which the featured speaker was to be introduced by Autherine Lucy, to whom the courts had recently granted the right to be admitted to the University of Alabama after being denied three years earlier. The group also continued to discuss the need for blacks to register to vote.49
Despite the efforts of Nixon, the WPC, and the NAACP, the entire African American community had not come together as a unified front in their fight against white supremacy. A large part of the problem was the gulf between black professionals and the black working class in and around Montgomery. Earlier in the year, Virginia Durr had noted the class divisions: “the Negro leaders themselves have such a hard time arousing the mass of Negro people to put up any kind of fight for themselves.” Part of the difficulty in mobilizing the masses rested in local social networks that rarely brought the classes together. While all faced the dehumanizing impact of segregation, their social spheres rarely intersected. Census data indicate that less than 10 percent of the African American population worked in professional fields, while most blacks worked as domestics, common laborers, or service workers. The division between the classes significantly affected one’s daily routine. While a professor at Alabama State College would be able to run a hot bath or shower in the morning, more than 82 percent of the black community lacked piped hot water in their homes. Nearly 70 percent of the black community still relied on chamber pots and outhouses, while only 6 percent of the white community lacked flushable toilets.50
Neighborhood demographics and social networks among professionals reinforced these divergent living conditions. Although African Americans lived throughout the city, they primarily clustered in three neighborhoods that had distinct socioeconomic features. The largest group lived just west of downtown, in the second ward. This community consisted primarily of poor unskilled service workers and domestics. Just east of downtown sat the second-largest black enclave. Although this section of town included a poor area, it also housed a professional community near the Alabama State College campus and another middle-class cluster and small business district on or near South Jackson Street, which is where the Dexter parsonage was located. The poorest black section of Montgomery was in the northern part of the city, in the shadows of warehouses, manufacturing mills, and other industries. Those who were part of the professional class often filled their lives with memberships in social service organizations and clubs. Although a few churches brought together the working and professional classes on Sunday, this was one of their few connections. Professional blacks might respond to physical needs and hardships that caught their attention, but for the most part they did not know the daily lives of working-class blacks in their own town. While philanthropy, service, lobbying, and court cases may have benefited the entire African American community, such an agenda was unlikely to “arouse the masses.” In the political arena, particularly following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, most local leaders set their sights on challenging Jim Crow segregation while relegating economic and quality of life issues to a secondary position.51
King happened to be the pastor of an African American church with a professional “silk-stocking” reputation. Although he enjoyed preaching to an educated congregation, he was never comfortable with the perceived exclusivity of Dexter. While he appreciated their staid responses to his preaching, he bristled at the undertones of haughtiness that often went hand in hand with a congregation largely comprised of professionals. Convinced that true worship would transcend class distinctions, King challenged Dexter to become more educationally and socioeconomically inclusive: “Worship at its best is a social experience where people of all levels of life come together and communicate with a common father. Here the employer and the employee, the rich and the poor, the white collar worker and the common laborer all come together in a vast unity. Here we come to see that although we have different callings in life we are all the children of a common father, who is the father of both the rich and the poor.” King’s earliest preaching experiences had been at his father’s primarily working-class church in Atlanta. He did not want Dexter to become Ebenezer, but he did want Dexter to become a place where any member of his father’s congregation would be welcomed and embraced. King’s desire to build ties with the working class played a significant role in uniting the people in the days to come.52
King also hoped to build bridges with the white community. Recognizing the presence in Montgomery of men and women like Aubrey Williams, Clifford and Virginia Durr, and Clara Rutledge reaffirmed King’s belief that goodwill was possible from the white race. While he did not dismiss the persistence of white racism, King encouraged his congregation to overcome the temptation to paint all whites with the same brush: “The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances.” King offered an extremely positive assessment of the potential of whites who are “some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality.” Highlighting the role of whites in the founding of the NAACP, King noted the organization still “gains a great deal of support from northern and southern white persons.” Therefore King could encourage his congregation to “wait on the Lord,” confident that “God’s goodness will ultimately win out over every state of evil in the universe.” King concluded, “We as Negroes may often have our highest dreams blown away by the jostling winds of a white man’s prejudice, but wait on the Lord.” A tragedy in the neighboring state of Mississippi provided a stark reminder to King and to African Americans throughout the country of the “jostling winds of a white man’s prejudice.”53
Earlier in the summer of 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till had traveled to visit family near Money, Mississippi. After the young African American from Chicago allegedly said “bye, baby” to a white lady working at the general store in town, many blacks in the area were prepared for the worst. Tragedy struck about a week later, when the woman’s husband and brother-in-law picked up Till in the middle of the night, shot him in the head, and dumped his body in a river. The arrest and trial of the murderers happened quickly. So did the jury’s acquittal of the men, as they deliberated for less than an hour before declaring the defendants “not guilty.”
For many African Americans, the murder of young Emmett Till served as a brutal reminder of the depths and horrors of racism. Countless blacks would never forget the picture of Till’s battered corpse published in Jet magazine. The acquittal of the murderers by an all-white Mississippi jury further demonstrated that justice did not exist for blacks in the South. The verdict amounted to a sanctioning of white supremacy and brutality. The case did not escape King’s notice. In a sermon delivered the week following the verdict, King lamented, “That jury in Mississippi, which a few days ago in the Emmett Till case, freed two white men from what might be considered one of the most brutal and inhuman crimes of the twentieth century, worships Christ.” In response to those who “worship Christ emotionally and not morally,” King paraphrased words from Isaiah 1:13–15: “Get out of my face. Your incense is an abomination unto me, your feast days trouble me. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my face. When you make your loud prayer, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.”54
In the wake of the Till verdict, King angrily lamented the brutal consequences of systematic injustice. He turned to the parable of the rich man, traditionally known as Dives, and Lazarus, in which an affluent man failed to fully address the needs of a beggar named Lazarus, resulting in eternal punishment for the wealthy man. For King, the man’s sin was not that he created the injustice but that “he felt that the gulf which existed between him and Lazarus was a proper condition of life. Dives felt that this was the way things were to be. He took the ‘isness’ of circumstantial accidents and transformed them into the ‘oughtness’ of a universal structure.” King connected the parable to life in America in 1955: “Dives is the white man who refuses to cross the gulf of segregation and lift his Negro brother to the position of first class citizenship, because he thinks segregation is a part of the fixed structure of the universe.” Like the rich man from Jesus’ parable, Alabama’s white denominations and organizations either failed to directly challenge the injustice of segregation or attempted to maintain the racial status quo.55
Some of the white businessmen in Montgomery became increasingly frustrated by the inability of local politicians to move the city forward following World War II. Concerned with the community’s economic dependence on the air force bases, they believed Montgomery desperately needed to embrace industrialization. In response, a number of leading businessmen chose to form a new organization: the “Men of Montgomery.” The group first met in October 1955 under the slogan “We Mean Business.” As this group of influential citizens examined the challenges facing their city, they did not recognize the crippling effects of systemic discrimination and segregation. Rather than lobby for a more inclusive city, this group hung their hopes for a new Montgomery on the construction of a cutting-edge terminal at the city’s airport.56
Alabama’s Southern Baptists also sought to overcome many of the challenges facing Montgomery and their home state. In a report submitted for the denomination’s statewide meeting, they addressed the issue of race relations, unable to turn a blind eye to what was an increasingly charged atmosphere following the Brown decision and the Till verdict. The denomination’s Christian Life Commission rendered the following report:
In the south it is primarily a matter of the black and the white.
The recent supreme court decision on desegregation is one of serious moment to the south. Only a dreaming idealist could close his eyes to the stark realities of that problem. On the other hand, the Christian must strive to his utmost to find a proper solution to the circumstances. Feeling runs high in the south as exemplified by the Till case in Mississippi. There is an unfortunate example of parties choosing to fan the emotions rather than seek to make the best usage of an extremely unfortunate situation. Hate-mongers on both sides have played upon the emotions of all otherwise reasonable people. It is not good and we earnestly urge thoughtfulness and patience. Without passing judgment on the “White Councils” organized in certain southern states we cannot help but raise the question, “Is it the best?” We look askance at these movements believing that they will divide us further rather than offer an answer.
The Southern Baptists in Alabama were aware of the challenges facing the South but were unwilling to take a clear stand on any of the big issues, including school desegregation, White Citizens Councils, or even the verdict in the Emmett Till trial. Such passivity by Christians in the South must have become more and more obvious to King the longer he lived in Montgomery.57
Meanwhile, the White Citizens Council sought to establish itself in the city. Roughly 450 people showed up for an October 3 organizational meeting at city hall. Temporary chairperson Luther Ingalls attempted to rally those gathered by shouting: “The house is on fire. We’ve got to wake up!” Alabama state senator Sam Englehardt offered an address in which he accused the NAACP of having ties to the Communist Party. In their analysis of the event, the Alabama Council of Human Relations newsletter seized on an editorial printed in the Montgomery Advertiser that noted that because they failed to attract any “face cards”—that is, no significant Montgomery leaders “were within a mile of the meeting”—the event was “harmless.” While the first meeting was not particularly well attended, the WCC would grow in strength over the next several months.58
In the face of the alarming passivity of some and the blatant racism of others, King’s concern for radical structural change continued to influence his preaching as 1955 drew to a close. In a very unorthodox interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, King questioned the longterm effectiveness of the story’s protagonist: “He was concerned merely with temporary relief, not with thorough reconstruction. He sought to sooth the effects of evil, without going back to uproot the causes.” King had come to realize that many southern whites were in the same boat. They might privately question the Till verdict, keep their distance when the White Citizens Council came to town, and offer assistance to a destitute African American that crossed their paths, but they were unwilling to challenge the dehumanizing system known as their “way of life.” King concluded his sermon by calling his congregation to couple the compassion of the Good Samaritan with a willingness “to tear down unjust conditions and build anew instead of just patching things up.” Within a few weeks, King would have the opportunity to make a major contribution in collaboration with others seeking significant structural change in Montgomery.59
As 1955 drew to a close, King found himself in the midst of the struggle for civil rights in the heart of the South. The doctrine of white supremacy cast a pall over the entire city of Montgomery. Although a handful spoke against the system, the vast majority of whites either wholeheartedly endorsed segregation or tacitly sanctioned its existence. Despite the apparent intransigence of Jim Crow segregation, some African Americans in Montgomery were challenging the status quo. They demanded meetings with city commissioners, held a political forum for local political candidates, attempted to integrate city schools, and rallied around the arrest of teenager Claudette Colvin when she refused to give up her seat on a city bus. Still, Montgomery’s black community was divided. Although conflicts among some leaders explained part of the problem, the day-to-day gulf between professionals and the working class proved more debilitating.
A resident of Alabama for fewer than eighteen months, King was not yet at the forefront of community activists. He did provide a new type of leader on the local scene, however. He combined the education and pedigree of the most accomplished black professionals in the city with a heart for connecting with working-class people. He also articulated a powerful message of hope that inspired people to radical love and bold labor with the confidence that segregation would soon pass away. King’s sermons during 1954–1955 reveal that challenging racism’s various manifestations became a regular feature of his preaching and psyche. As he encountered Robert Hughes, Juliette Morgan, Aubrey Williams, and Virginia Durr, he was encouraged by the willingness of some whites to join the struggle for justice. Through the courageous and tireless efforts of Jo Ann Robinson, E. D. Nixon, Mary Fair Burks, Rufus Lewis, and Rosa Parks, he saw examples of people making contributions toward the effort to end discrimination and segregation. Inspired by their lives, King was ready to join the front lines of the battle himself.60