Becoming King

by Troy Jackson

  Over the next few weeks, however, King had the opportunity to spend time with Bayard Rustin and Glenn Smiley, two avowed pacifists who helped King infuse his love ethic with the ideology of nonviolence. Rustin, a civil rights veteran, arrived in Montgomery at the behest of novelist Lillian Smith, who believed King and the MIA would benefit from greater instruction in nonviolence. Rustin had spent time working with the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), and in 1956 was serving as the executive secretary of the War Resisters League. Rustin was a close associate of the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, A. Philip Randolph, and a student of Gandhian nonviolence. He also had a past that, if discovered, could embarrass the Montgomery movement. In addition to a brief period when he was a part of the Young Communist League, Rustin had served a prison sentence for resisting the draft and had been convicted for sodomy just three years earlier. Because of these concerns, some of Rustin’s associates encouraged him not to go to Montgomery at all, but in the end Randolph and pacifist A. J. Muste deemed his value to King and the nascent Montgomery movement significant enough to justify his visit. Upon his arrival in the city, Rustin was struck by the tension he witnessed. He noted that both King and Abernathy had shifts of men watching their homes every night. MIA leaders warned Rustin that he would be under white surveillance and therefore ought to take necessary precautions.9

  As an outsider, Rustin spent his first few days attempting to better understand the climate in the city. One evening he went to visit Jeanetta Reese, who had withdrawn her name as a plaintiff from the lawsuit filed by Fred Gray. He was shocked by what he found at Reese’s home: “Although the police had provided no protection for King and Nixon after their houses had been bombed, I found two squad cards parked before Mrs. Reese’s home.” After negotiating with police to be allowed to approach Reese’s home, all he could get her to say was, “I had to do what I did or I wouldn’t be alive today.”10

  King invited Rustin to participate in nearly all MIA events during his visit. The two men also had several extensive discussions regarding the principle of nonviolence. A few days after Rustin’s arrival, Glenn Smiley, a white FOR official, joined Rustin in Montgomery. Like Rustin, Smiley had the opportunity to spend significant time with King discussing the principles of the movement, including the relevance of Gandhi’s leadership and ideas to what was happening in Montgomery. According to Smiley’s reflections on the conversations, King admitted regarding Gandhi, “I will have to say that I know very little about the man.” King had heard of Gandhi many times at Morehouse, but he had never studied his thought in depth.11

  Soon after Smiley’s arrival, a letter came to him from New York informing him that Randolph and others had decided Rustin needed to leave Montgomery, in part due to a lukewarm response to his presence by many in leadership with the MIA. Several local leaders feared Rustin wanted to influence the direction of the movement and receive credit for some of its successes: “There is some danger that Bayard is indicating that he has had more to do with what is happening, than he actually has.” Although Smiley proved less forceful and abrasive to the MIA leadership, he shared a paternalistic attitude toward those in Montgomery: “we can learn from their courage and plain earthly devices for building morale, etc., but they can learn more from us, for being so new at this, King runs out of ideas quickly and does the old things again and again. He wants help, and we can give it to him without attempting to run the movement.” Rustin and Smiley would both be significant figures in continuing to shape and develop King’s thoughts and philosophy regarding nonviolence by providing a philosophical framework for what was happening in Montgomery. Their impact on the boycott itself was minimal, however. Although King was not a complete advocate of nonviolence prior to the boycott, he passionately expressed a commitment to an ethic of love and nonviolence in both the December 1955 Holt Street address and in his unprepared remarks following the bombing of his home in January 1956. Rustin and Smiley helped sand and polish King’s philosophy of nonviolence, yet it was the people’s willingness to boycott Montgomery’s buses that brought King’s nonviolent leanings to the surface in the first place.12

  The MIA struggled to find appropriate responses in part because white attacks came from so many different directions. Many working-class whites expressed their solidarity with the city commissioners by joining the local White Citizens Council, which became the community’s largest white organization by the end of January. On February 10, more than ten thousand turned out for a WCC gathering to hear Mississippi senator James Eastland. During the rally, the crowd applauded the resolve of city leaders in the face of the bus boycott. Using the methods of intimidation and economic reprisals against those participating in the boycott, the ranks of the WCC were bolstered by union members, who had a history of local resistance to interracial policies advocated by the national AFL-CIO. In the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decisions, many local unions even threatened to break away from their national organizations. Four of the seven members of the Montgomery WCC executive board were union members, leading attorney Clifford Durr to label most of the members of the citizens’ council “riff-raff” rather than people of any real prominence. Despite Durr’s dismissive appraisal, the numbers of laborers who joined the council made it an organization of significant white resistance during the boycott. Union members continued to bolster the ranks as each round of bus-driver layoffs sparked greater anger and bitterness. During the boycott, Montgomery’s Carpenters Hall, where many unions met for their meetings, even became a locus of Ku Klux Klan activity.13

  White resistance to racial equality included the clergy. During the week after the bombing of King’s home, a Fisk university researcher interviewed G. Stanley Frazier, who served as the pastor of St. James Methodist Church in Montgomery. A member of the WCC, Frazier attacked the MIA for attempting to use “the church as an instrument to destroy segregation.” Frazier claimed that “both races prefer segregation” and that the boycott was ultimately an attempt to force integration on the people of Montgomery.14

  Political leaders also dug in their heels as the boycott wore on. Montgomery mayor, William “Tacky” Gayle, when asked what was the root cause of the bus boycott, responded: “Segregation. They want to destroy our whole social fabric. We have laws that they want to ignore.” Gayle complained that white women who were driving their maids to work and back were partly responsible for the success of the boycott. Virginia Durr recalled the response of many of Montgomery’s white women: “If the mayor wants to do my washing and ironing and cooking and cleaning and raise my children, let him come out here and do it.” Durr was quick to point out that most white women did not overtly support the boycott. Still, their self-interest prevailed over the social and legal issues that were in play.15

  Former city commissioner Dave Birmingham, a year after his electoral defeat, weighed in on the boycott as well. He cited four primary causes for the protest, including “the tendency of mulattoes to want to bring about integration,” the end of segregation in the armed forces (particularly significant with the proximity of Maxwell Air Force Base), the Brown v. Board of Education rulings, and the Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks cases. Although Birmingham had received significant African American support during his candidacy, he was not a supporter of the boycott. MIA attorney Fred Gray believed that had Birmingham been in office, the boycott may not have happened.16 Certainly his relationship with Nixon could have served as a conduit for negotiations during the early weeks of the protest. His opportunity for real influence would have been very early in December, however. If an early settlement had not been brokered, it is very doubtful that Birmingham would have greatly influenced the course of the boycott in any substantive way.17

  Joe Azbell, an editor with the Montgomery Advertiser, was one of many whites who believed blacks simply lacked gratitude for all the whites had done for them over the years. Claiming African Americans benefited from “85 % of every tax dollar
” while paying only 15 percent of local taxes, he questioned their wisdom in upsetting the paternalistic relationship that had served the city so well for decades. In Azbell’s opinion, the boycott was “a slap in the face after all [whites] have done for them and all that good feeling that was there has been destroyed.” He believed whites were not concerned about the boycott and “are glad the ‘Nigra’ are off the buses. They don’t want them back on, they don’t care if they never ride the buses again. I have had lots of calls from white people since my column asking me why I wanted to settle it—they said they were glad the black bastards were off the buses and to let them stay off. That is how the white people feel.” He then attacked the morality of blacks, claiming they purchased 80 percent of the whiskey sold in the city. Azbell’s reckless reliance on spurious racialized statistics demonstrates how little empathy he had for the MIA or its cause.18

  Other whites took bold countercultural stands in support of the boycott, often at great personal cost. Librarian Juliette Morgan, who had written an editorial to the Montgomery Advertiser in December praising the boycott, faced significant backlash. Some patrons claimed they would no longer take advantage of library services as long as Morgan remained on the payroll. Although Morgan’s mother, Lili Bess Olin Morgan, did not support her daughter’s views, she did allow Juliette to stay with her during the first few months of the boycott. Some of the feedback to Morgan’s letter was positive, revealing the complexity of the white community’s attitude during this season of tension and upheaval. Morgan even claimed that most of the responders to her editorial “agreed with me, and said they would have liked to say the same thing themselves, but they couldn’t for various reasons. Most of them are afraid—the kind of fear that is silly in the long run, but I guess in the short run, maybe there is something in it.” Morgan also reflected on her controversial standing in the community: “I feel like we don’t have much to gain, or to lose, in this life and none of it is worth much if we feel like we can’t stand up for the things we believe in. Maybe I’m an exception and I’m more secure than most people, but I feel like what I have to lose isn’t worth being silent. I pay for it in my stomach, but I would pay for it more if I didn’t say the things I think I should. I think that the real basis for silence in situations like this is greed. Not greed in the ordinary sense, but greed in the sense that people are fearful of losing what they have.” While Morgan continued to support the boycott throughout, she remained frustrated by the silence of prominent whites “who want to say something, but are afraid to speak out.”19

  Like Morgan, the women of the Fellowship of the Concerned were not afraid to challenge white supremacy. The local organization conducted a workshop in March at Trinity Lutheran Church titled “The Supreme Court Decision—Building Community Understanding.” Olive Andrews attended the workshop and commented on the intentional mispronunciation of “Negro”: “We here in Montgomery know how to pronounce Negro, for our Negroes are our heroes.” Later Andrews noted that the city ordinance against segregated meetings did not apply to churches. Clifford and Virginia Durr also worked behind the scenes to assist the protestors. The Durrs had joined E. D. Nixon in bailing Rosa Parks out of jail and were present as Nixon attempted to convince Parks and her family to allow her arrest to be a test case to challenge the city’s segregation laws. As the boycott continued, Clifford Durr immersed himself in the legal challenges facing the MIA. Although he was never the attorney of record, he provided extensive legal assistance to Fred Gray.20

  They were joined in their efforts by Robert Graetz, the only white clergy member to join the MIA. Graetz believed that there were a number of whites in the city who were in favor of change, citing the presence of the Alabama Council on Human Relations. In his view, the largest segment of white support for the boycott came from the wives of businessmen in the city. Graetz also believed that about half the white ministers in the city were on the side of the boycotters, and hoped many of these would stand up and be counted in the near future.21

  Some white business leaders tried to play a mediating role as the conflict continued. The previous year they had developed a group known as the Men of Montgomery in an attempt to help the city advance economically. Although many segregationists belonged to the organization, King felt “they were open-minded enough to listen to another point of view and discuss the problem of race intelligently.” They were particularly concerned about the negative national press directed toward Montgomery thanks to the boycott. In February, the group set up meetings with both the city and some MIA leaders in an attempt to broker a settlement. G. T. Fitzpatrick, who ran Empire-Rouse Laundry, described their talks in extremely patronizing terms: “we had several long sessions with them and while we were dealing with what you might call the upper crust—the ministers and teachers—we had to treat them pretty much like children—lead them along by the hand, so to speak. All of us businessmen agreed we could have done the same thing in two or three hours, but had to sit with it through two or three sessions lasting that long.” Despite this paternalism, the conversations between the MIA and the Men of Montgomery held some promise for a solution.22

  Representatives of the Men of Montgomery met with some MIA leaders on a few occasions during mid-February. Many of the business leaders believed they had reached an agreement to settle the boycott at their final meeting, having secured the endorsement of their plan by both the bus company and the city commissioners. When the proposal was taken to a mass meeting on February 20, it was voted down by a reported margin of 3,998 to 2. Business leader G. T. Matthews noted that the MIA leaders had claimed that they were simply representatives of the organization, and any decisions would be subject to the approval of the people. Matthews did not fully believe this claim, noting “if the leaders wanted to settle it, they could have. The ministers are running the thing and their congregations will follow them. You know how they are. Most of them are ignorant and they will do whatever their preachers tell them.” Fitzgerald did concede that the roughly two hundred black workers at his plant had been extremely disciplined throughout the boycott and had continued to be very productive workers, noting “from a purely selfish standpoint, the boycott has been a good thing for my plant.” While the business leaders were undoubtedly prejudiced, King later reflected that, had it not been for the “recalcitrance of the city commission,” the MIA and Men of Montgomery may have worked out a deal.23

  Some boycott leaders and participants were surprised more people did not endorse the settlement. The agreement included reserving ten seats at the front of the buses for white patrons and ten at the back for African American riders, as well as a guarantee for greater courtesy on the buses. According to Alabama State College professor Lawrence Reddick, after nearly three months of the boycott many carpool drivers were growing weary. Some were driving four or five hours a day on top of their jobs, family responsibilities, and other obligations. In light of the federal suit filed to attempt to end bus segregation, the outcome of the bus situation in Montgomery no longer seemed to rise or fall based on the continuance of the boycott. In the end, the courts would decide the most pressing questions. Based on these concerns, the leaders elected to submit the Men of Montgomery proposal to the people. According to Reddick, the nearly unanimous rejection of the proposed settlement “revived the morale of the leaders.” The MIA did offer their appreciation for the Men of Montgomery’s “very fine exemplification of good will and its willingness to see justice prevail in the city for all citizens.”24

  Few white leaders embodied a passion for justice, however. In the wake of the MIA’s decision to launch a court case seeking an end to segregated buses in Montgomery, the city decided to take legal action against the boycott itself. While King was delivering a series of lectures at Fisk University in Nashville, the grand jury indicted 115 boycott participants, charging they were in violation of an obscure 1921 law in Alabama prohibiting conspiracies that sought to undermine legal business and commerce. The February 21 indictment charged th
at King and others “did, without just cause or legal excuse for so doing, enter into a combination, conspiracy, agreement, arrangement, or understanding for the purpose of hindering, delaying, or preventing Montgomery City Lines, Inc., a corporation, from carrying on lawful business.” The list of those charged was riddled with errors and inaccuracies that resulted in lowering the total number indicted to eighty-nine. The morning after the grand jury’s decision, many boycott participants set out for the police station. Nixon was first to enter, saying: “You are looking for me? Here I am.” While white officials were surprised to see such a willingness to submit to arrest, the boldness of the leaders excited and encouraged participants who gathered to watch the proceedings. Meanwhile, King left Nashville early and flew to Atlanta, where Coretta and their daughter, Yolanda, were staying with his parents.25

  Daddy King was ready for his son’s arrival. Concerned that the Montgomery authorities were out to get his son, Daddy King assembled a number of family friends in an attempt to convince King Jr. to remain in Atlanta for the time being. Among those present was King Jr.’s mentor and Morehouse College president Benjamin Mays. Despite the pleadings of his father and many respected elders gathered at his parents’ home, King never wavered from his resolve to return to Montgomery. Reflecting on the meeting, King remembered saying: “I must go back to Montgomery. My friends and associates are being arrested. It would be the height of cowardice for me to stay away. I would rather be in jail ten years than desert my people now. I have begun the struggle, and I can’t turn back.” Hearing King’s words, Dr. Mays began to defend the decision to return to Montgomery, and others soon relented as well. Early on February 23, Daddy King joined his son’s family as they drove to Montgomery. In what he later described as a “holiday atmosphere,” King went to the courthouse, where he was arrested, fingerprinted, photographed, and then released on bail. That evening at a prayer meeting held at Abernathy’s First Baptist Church, King addressed a crowd of several thousand. He reminded his audience that their goal was not racial conflict but to bring improvement to “the whole of Montgomery.” Should they continue to be “arrested,” “exploited,” and “trampled over” daily, King called them to not “let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love.” King concluded with a word of hope, for although “we stand in life at midnight, we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.”26