Becoming King Read online

  No member of the WPC was more active than Jo Ann Robinson. She came to Montgomery to teach English at ASC, and her willingness to seek justice for blacks in the segregated South crystallized soon after. Following her first semester at ASC, Robinson prepared to visit her family in Ohio for Christmas. Although she owned a car, she elected to take a bus to the airport to avoid the hassle of long-term parking. Not used to riding public transportation, Robinson boarded the bus, paid her fare, and took an available seat near the front. The driver began instructing her to move almost at once, but she was so surprised by his words that she froze. Soon the driver was standing above her shouting, “Get up from there.” Unaware of the Jim Crow laws governing buses in the city and humiliated by the treatment she received from the driver, Robinson quickly exited and found other transportation to the airport. As she reflected on this dehumanizing episode, Robinson’s resolve to get involved in changing the climate in Montgomery grew. Her most significant role in the local struggle was as president of the WPC.43

  When Robinson replaced Burks as head of the WPC, she brought a more activist and confrontational spirit to the organization. Although Robinson did not completely overhaul the WPC when she assumed the presidency, she did lead the organization into addressing the mistreatment of African American passengers on city buses and to confront the city commission. Robinson herself admits that by the early 1950s the WPC had become the “go-to” organization for Montgomery blacks who had issues or grievances they wanted the city to address. In 1953 alone, they received well over thirty citizen complaints against the bus company.44

  As early as 1952, the WPC began raising concerns about the treatment of black passengers on city buses to the city commission. Their complaints included a seating arrangement that reserved the front ten seats for whites, whether the bus had any white riders or not. If whites boarded the bus and there were no available seats in the first ten rows, the black passengers in the seats closest to the front were frequently ordered by the driver to relinquish their seats. Adding to the frustration was the lack of courtesy displayed by drivers, who were granted police powers while on duty. In a public hearing held by the city commission on the possibility of raising fares on the city bus lines, the WPC made their concerns known. Led by Mrs. Zolena J. Pierce (wife of the political science professor J. E. Pierce) and Mrs. Sadie Brooks (wife of Joseph Brooks, Trenholm’s assistant), they pleaded for the city to make immediate changes, but the only response they received was an agreement by the commission to take the WPC proposal under advisement. Leaders of the WPC met directly with city commissioners in November and December 1953. Again they raised concerns shared by many in the African American community, including frustrations with the buses, but to no avail. Despite a lack of early success, the WPC demonstrated a tireless commitment to challenge the racial status quo that would become more evident in the coming years. They were not alone.45

  Among the more committed African American activists in Montgomery was another Dexter member: Rufus Lewis. A graduate of Fisk University and the former coach of the ASC football team, Lewis labored to provide educational opportunities to black veterans returning from World War II. He was also a very successful businessman who oversaw the largest black funeral home business in the city. According to Montgomery pastor Solomon Seay, Lewis applied his business acumen to the local struggle. The primary focus of his activities was to help blacks register to vote, a task he organized through his leadership of an organization called the Citizens Steering Committee. Thelma Glass called Lewis “one of the hardest workers in voter registration that I’ve ever met in my life.”46

  In a climate of poll taxes, literacy tests, and comprehension tests, many blacks had to attempt to register several times before they were finally put on the voting rolls. One of the greatest challenges was keeping local African Americans motivated enough to try to register. Lewis claimed that he dedicated his life to helping people overcome all barriers that would prevent them from participating in the electoral process: “My labors in this area commenced years before the bus boycott or the protest movement commenced. I used to go around to the homes of adults and business establishments owned by Black people and encourage them to go to the courthouse and register to vote.” To provide a greater incentive for his fellow citizens to register, Lewis opened a nightclub called the Citizens Club that was open only to registered voters. Partially inspired by Vernon Johns, Dexter congregants like Burks, Robinson, and Lewis began to work tirelessly to advance the cause of African Americans in Montgomery.47

  Johns was not only seeking political and educational advancement, however. He also campaigned tirelessly for greater black economic development to benefit the working class. Dexter parishioner Thelma Rice remembers a warm afternoon when she was approached by Johns, who was busy selling eggs to passersby. What began as an attempt to peddle eggs became a discussion regarding what blacks in Montgomery needed most, with each settling on economic advances. In Rice’s view, Johns was so convinced of the need for a viable economic base among African Americans that “he lived it and practiced it.” One of the ways he demonstrated his concern for economic community development was to establish an African American food cooperative known as the Farm and City Enterprises. He hoped the dollar would begin to turn over several times within the black community, creating jobs while providing greater economic independence from white Montgomery.48

  For many in the congregation, Johns’s practice of selling vegetables, fruits, and occasionally honey-cured hams from the church basement on Sunday afternoons was cause for embarrassment. Johns’s lack of decorum, his impatience, and his bad temper led many of Dexter’s leaders to seek a change in pastoral leadership. Dexter member Warren Brown later referred to Johns as “a hot-tempered individual.” Johns’s militancy limited how much impact he could have within the walls of Dexter and in the broader community. Nesbitt shared this assessment: “Dr. Johns had a vision and the depth needed to lead, but he was too violent. His philosophy was ‘I want it and I want it now.’”49

  The congregation’s deacon board had a long history of controlling the church’s pastors, but Johns had his own agenda. During his five years at Dexter, Johns and the church leaders were in a perpetual power struggle. One area of disagreement was the church’s refusal to use black spirituals in their worship services. While Johns agreed with Dexter’s general disdain for emotionalism, he was very fond of traditional spirituals, believing they represented a part of their history they ought to embrace and celebrate. The church’s embarrassment of their own heritage irritated Johns. Occasionally he would attempt to add an unplanned spiritual to the service. From the pulpit he would interrupt the planned service and demand that the organist play “I Got Shoes” or “Go Down, Moses,” but never successfully. Johns’s decision to go to the campus of ASC to sell watermelons marked the beginning of the end for his tenure at Dexter. For many of the ASC faculty, this was the last straw, especially when Johns embarrassed them on their home turf of the college campus. Another battle with the deacons ensued, leading Johns to announce that he would be preaching his farewell sermon on May 3, 1953. The board saw their chance and acted quickly, accepting Johns’s announcement that he had preached his farewell sermon and declaring the pulpit vacant. Although Johns refused to vacate the parsonage until the church had the city turn off the home’s utilities, his days as Dexter’s pastor were over.50

  In the end, the benefits of retaining Vernon Johns could not outweigh the difficulties his ministry imposed on the congregation. The majority of congregation members were simply too embarrassed by Johns’s undignified peddling of fruit and too fearful of white reprisal for his boldness. Dexter Avenue Baptist Church had a pastoral vacancy that would not be filled for nearly a year. Johns’s dismissal reveals the reticence of many African Americans in Montgomery to publicly challenge the white power structure, even vicariously, as through a pastor or community leader. They knew that violating any of the South’s racial mores could have tragic results, as t
he story of Jeremiah Reeves demonstrates.

  In late 1952, authorities arrested Reeves, a seventeen-year-old African American, for allegedly robbing, assaulting, and raping forty-six-year-old Mrs. Frances Prescott. While rumors persisted that Reeves and his supposed victim were actually having an affair, his trial proved to be an opportunity to reinforce the threat of the black male to the southern way of life. A few days after the jury found Reeves guilty and sentenced him to death, the story of a nineteen-year-old African American named John Smith made the local papers. According to an editorial on the incident, Smith “was chased 20 miles, fired at by a would-be captor, and scared half to death—all out of ‘mistake.’” Calling the situation “a graphic illustration of the way mob hysteria develops,” they quoted a local farmer who said he “wanted to kill the Negro but couldn’t get close enough. Another pursuer shot at him.” Citing the Reeves case, they claimed that “the hysteria which threatened Smith is partly understandable.” In the minds of many whites in Montgomery, the threat of black males harming or even raping white women made the most unjust actions “partly understandable.” There is no indication in the newspaper that the authorities charged the man who shot at Smith with any crime.51

  The Reeves trial and conviction reminded white men how important it was to publicly fight for segregation lest they put white women at risk. Black men took note of how quickly an all-white jury sentenced Reeves to death and undoubtedly heard about the twenty-mile chase of John Smith. African American males who transgressed the racial code, or were even suspected of doing so, put their lives at risk. White women were reminded that their reputations were at stake should they cross racial lines. Black women, however, continued to operate below the surface. Not viewed as a threat and barely noticed by white society, black women had the freedom to challenge racism by stealth. Even when they negotiated with the mayor in his office, the community barely noticed. While black women were not alone in fighting white supremacy in Montgomery at midcentury, their voices were some of the most consistent. Though many black men in the city were just as frustrated with the racial status quo, they had more to lose by being outspoken. Whites believed they had much more to fear from black men, and therefore they responded more quickly, and often violently, to any who got out of line. As whites fixed their attention on black men, several black women were stirring the waters of racial change in Montgomery.

  In December 1953, Alabama’s capital city appeared calm. On the surface, blacks and whites alike seemed fully acclimated to the mores of southern race relations. Most whites in the city felt they lived in a city of racial harmony. With the departure of the fearless Vernon Johns, some whites breathed a sigh of relief. Still there was a stirring of the waters in Montgomery as people from both races worked to unleash an assault on segregation. Nixon and Parks had not lost their concern for a movement to secure changes that would benefit the tens of thousands of working-class African Americans in and around Montgomery. Beneath the surface, the waters were stirring. Dexter member Thelma Rice remembered: “African-Americans in Montgomery were not as soft and idle in the late 1940s and early 1950s as the public has been led to believe. Years before the bus boycott numerous organizations composed of and headed by African Americans were working to secure civil rights for the race locally.” A few hours’ drive east of Montgomery, a young doctoral student named Martin Luther King Jr. was ready for a place to put his pastoral training into action. Within a few months, King would join those in Montgomery eager to challenge white supremacy.52

  2 “The Gospel I Will Preach”

  Let us continue to hope, work, and pray that in the future we will live to see a warless world, a better distribution of wealth, and a brotherhood that transcends race or color. This is the gospel that I will preach to the world.

  —Martin Luther King Jr., July 18, 1952

  Before Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday, he had already devoted several years to preparing for the pastorate. Although he was the son and grandson of black Baptist preachers, he was not interested in simply following in their footsteps. King was unwilling to pastor in a tradition that, as he saw it, had all too often valued the heart above the head, the future above the present, and the spiritual above the physical. He was determined to chart a new course by creatively appropriating the thoughts, methods, and language of the leading preachers and theologians of the day. He sought out role models, such as Morehouse College president Benjamin Mays, who embodied aspects of an intellectually engaged ministry. This is not to suggest that King somehow eschewed his religious heritage. Only because he was so thoroughly grounded and well versed in the black Baptist tradition did he have the freedom to refashion his role and objectives as a pastor. Knowing the terrain so well, he was able to blaze new trails while remaining familiar to his congregation and community.

  In a letter composed while in graduate school, King laid out a vision for his ministry, which he called “the gospel I will preach to the world”: “Let us continue to hope, work, and pray that in the future we will live to see a warless world, a better distribution of wealth, and a brotherhood that transcends race or color.” King came to Montgomery with a heartfelt hope that, with his diligent and faithful effort, God could use his church to assist in racial uplift while he and his congregation labored for social change. King’s earliest religious writings demonstrate that he had worked hard to prepare for this opportunity, crafting a language, a ministry philosophy, and a persona that could inspire thoughtful and purposeful engagement and the transformation of culture. Years before he arrived in Montgomery, King believed in the revolutionary and redemptive power of love. The transforming potency of love was the gospel King would preach to the world.1

  Michael King Jr. was born on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta on January 15, 1929. Known to close friends and family as “M. L.,” his name was officially changed to Martin several years later. The African American community around Auburn Avenue served as an incubator for his development throughout his childhood. Just a few blocks from King’s house sat his “second home,” Ebenezer Baptist Church, a congregation under the leadership of his grandfather and father. Atlanta also housed Morehouse College, where King earned his bachelor’s degree in 1948. King’s upbringing in a southern city greatly shaped his life and ministry.2

  During King’s childhood, the African American community in Atlanta had a higher percentage of college graduates than any other southern city. With several black colleges, including Atlanta University, Spelman College, and Morehouse College, the city’s educated black elite assumed roles as spokespeople for their race. Following the devastating 1906 race riot, which resulted in dozens of African American fatalities and the devastation of many black neighborhoods in Atlanta, community leaders adopted a strategy of racial progress rooted in black respectability, or an attempt to achieve racial advancement through embodying the most sublime values of white America. With the onslaught of the Great Depression and the subsequent New Deal, many educated African Americans had the opportunity to become a part of government programs designed to assist those marginalized in their communities. This resulted in an entrenched black professional leadership class in Atlanta and an increasing gulf between the classes and the masses.3

  Atlanta provided King with many models of successful, well-educated African Americans who were able to become part of the system and deliver greater services for their community. He also witnessed the emerging gap between the working and professional classes, a chasm he never embraced. On a smaller scale, Montgomery exhibited similar dynamics between the professional and working classes, easing King’s later transition into the ministry in Alabama’s capital city. Had King remained in Atlanta, his emergence into leadership would have happened at a much slower rate, given the number of pastors and community leaders already established as community power brokers as well as the long shadow of his prominent father. Although Atlanta played a major role in fostering King’s development, he became King the civil rights leader in Montgomery
.

  King brought much of Atlanta with him to Montgomery, however, including the influence of his immediate family. When King’s maternal grandfather, Reverend A. D. Williams, took the helm of Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1894, the struggling Atlanta congregation numbered only thirteen members. Under Williams’s leadership, Ebenezer grew to several hundred, began an ambitious building program, and became one of the leading African American congregations in the city. King’s grandfather was also active in the broader community, serving for a time as the branch president of the NAACP during the organization’s early years in the South. Although Williams died while Martin Luther King Jr. was only two, Williams had a significant influence on the development of King’s father. Martin Luther King Sr., later known simply as “Daddy King,” took over Ebenezer after his father-in-law’s death and helped the church grow from six hundred members in 1931 to several thousand by the late 1940s. He made a name for himself not only in Atlanta but also on the national stage as an active participant in the country’s largest African American organization, the National Baptist Convention. His congregation sat on “Sweet Auburn,” one of the most significant black business districts in the nation. Segregated housing ensured that black professionals and the working class lived in relatively close proximity, but Ebenezer was primarily populated by working-class congregants. The Great Depression struck Atlanta’s African American community early and hard, and Daddy King’s congregation was no exception. Faced with possible foreclosure on their building, the young pastor rallied his church both financially and numerically. Following in the tradition of Williams, Daddy King served as a local leader of the NAACP, led a massive voter registration drive in 1939, and worked for the equalization of black teachers’ salaries with those of their white counterparts in Atlanta’s public schools.4