Becoming King

by Troy Jackson

  King continued to mix realism and optimism with his congregation the following Sunday. He admitted that recent historic events, both globally and in the South, might justify some in having a negative assessment of human nature: “Within a generation we have fought two world wars. We have seen man’s tragic inhumanity to man. We have looked to Mississippi and seen supposedly Christian and civilized men brutally murdering the precious life of a little child. We have looked to Alabama and seen a ruthless mob take the precious law of the land and crush it below their tragic whims and caprices.” These realities ought not lead to despair, however, for Jesus’ ministry “revealed a deep faith in the possibilities of human nature.” Based on faith in the human capacity to change, King predicted the boycott would end as “a victory for justice, a victory for fair play and a victory for democracy.”27

  The month of February had proven a critical one for King. He faced threats and experienced violence, yet his resolve had not faltered. One of King’s greatest sources of encouragement was the people themselves. February had proven pivotal for them as well. Those who sacrificed most by not riding city buses had overwhelmingly defeated a proposed settlement brought by the Men of Montgomery. The grand jury had indicted a group of eighty-eight people in addition to King, demonstrating that the boycott was about the people of the city and not the leaders alone. At the last mass meeting of the month, held at Holt Street Baptist Church, King began his remarks by describing the mood of the people: “We have new zeal, new stamina to carry on.” While reports at the meeting suggest the arrest did have a negative impact on the car pool, Ralph Abernathy offered some brief remarks: “Thanks must go to 50,000 Montgomery Negroes. This is your movement; we don’t have any leaders in the movement; you are the leaders.” The African American people of Montgomery had displayed their commitment to the movement that month. They had withstood an onslaught of tactics from those intent on defeating the boycott without cowering in fear or reacting with violence.28

  With his trial set to begin the next morning, King elected to title his March 18 sermon “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious.” He began the sermon with a description of the recent riots in Tuscaloosa that led University of Alabama officials to force Autherine Lucy, the school’s first African American student, to leave the university. King cited a local newspaper editorial that claimed, “There is a peace on the campus of the University of Alabama.” King blasted the university officials, noting any calm they were experiencing was built on “peace that had been purchased at the price of capitulating to the forces of darkness. This is the type of peace that all men of goodwill hate. This is the type of peace that stinks in the nostrils of the almighty God.” King urged his congregation not to accept peace at any price, as “every true Christian is a fighting pacifist.” Citing Jesus’ words that he did not come to bring peace but a sword, King defined true peace as “not merely the absence of some negative force” but rather as “the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.”29

  King acknowledged the presence of forces pursuing “obnoxious peace” in Montgomery: “I had a long talk the other day with a man about this bus situation. He discussed the peace being destroyed in the community, the destroying of good race relations.” While admitting “if the Negro accepts his place, accepts exploitation, and injustice, there will be peace,” King had no interest in this type of “obnoxious peace.” He passionately proclaimed: “If peace means accepting second class citizenship, I don’t want it. If peace means keeping my mouth shut in the midst of injustice and evil, I don’t want it. If peace means being complacently adjusted to a deadening status quo, I don’t want peace. If peace means a willingness to be exploited economically, dominated politically, humiliated and segregated, I don’t want peace.” For the many professionals sitting in the pews of Dexter that morning, King’s words defied their most tested strategy of survival in the segregated South: keeping the peace at any cost. As King prepared to enter court the next morning, he was unwilling to seek an easy out. He proclaimed his willingness to “revolt against this peace” so the true peace of God’s Kingdom might be established on the earth.30

  The eyes of the world focused on Montgomery when King’s trial began. Reporters from Europe and Asia joined many American journalists to witness the proceedings. The prosecution sought to prove the significant role that King and other leaders had in both the commencement and the continuation of the bus boycott, thus demonstrating a pattern that would violate the state law. The defense argued there had been a longstanding pattern of discrimination and mistreatment on city buses that finally boiled over into a spontaneous protest, providing a “just cause” for the boycott. The truth rested somewhere in between. While leaders had played a critical role in the early days of the boycott, the people passionately supported the idea. Were it not for the overwhelming support of the people for a one-day boycott on December 5, the leaders would not have proposed continuing the protest, nor would they have formed the MIA. Making such a movement successful did require leadership, however, as transportation systems, negotiating teams, and planned mass meetings helped provide a sense of unity and shared purpose.

  King was the final defense witness in the trial. He testified that he had not urged members of the MIA to stay off the buses but had advocated that people “let your conscience be your guide, if you want to ride that is all right.” Under cross-examination, the prosecution used minutes from the first few MIA meetings in an attempt to show King’s definitive direction of the boycott from its inception. Particularly damaging to King’s position was the resolution presented by the MIA that Abernathy read at Holt Street on December 5: “That the citizens of Montgomery are requesting that every citizen in Montgomery, regardless of race, color or creed, to refrain from riding busses owned and operated in the city of Montgomery by the Montgomery City Lines, Incorporated until some arrangement has been worked out between said citizens and the Montgomery City Lines, Incorporated.” While King did not draft the statement, it did represent the official position of the MIA, and thus accurately reflected his sentiment. The case then depended on whether the judge would find that the MIA had just cause for boycotting the buses. After the four-day trial, Judge Eugene W. Carter found King guilty, sentencing him to either a $500 fine or 386 days of hard labor in Montgomery County. King’s attorneys appealed the ruling, leading Judge Carter to suspend King’s sentence and postpone the remaining eighty-eight boycott cases until the appeal had been heard. Over a year later, the court of appeals denied King’s appeal, as his attorneys had waited too long to officially file the complaint.31

  Immediately after the verdict, Coretta King joined her husband in a press conference outside the courthouse. Coretta affirmed that she had not wavered from her commitment to her husband and the protest: “All along I have supported my husband in this cause, and whatever happens to him, happens to me.” Again King took the opportunity to advocate nonviolence: “there is no bitterness on my part as a result of the decision and I’m sure that I voice the sentiment of the more than forty thousand Negro citizens of Montgomery. We still have the attitude of love, we still have the method of passive resistance and we are still insisting, emphatically, that violence is self-defeating.” That evening the community gathered for a mass meeting during which King further reflected on his trial. He began his remarks by confessing to committing three sins: “being born a Negro,” “being subjected to the battering rams of segregation and oppression,” and “having the moral courage to stand up and express our weariness of this oppression.” Remarking on the decision of Judge Carter, King noted that perhaps “he did the best he could under the expedient method. As you know, men in political positions allow themselves to succumb to the expedient rather than reaching out for the moral that might be eternally corrective and true.” He also sounded a message of hope in America, which has the capacity “to transform democracy from thin paper to thick action.” King applied biblical imagery to the suffering of the people of Montgome
ry: “You don’t get to the promised land without going through the wilderness. Though we may not get to see the promised land, we know it’s coming because God is for it. So don’t worry about some of the things we have to go through. They are just a necessary part of the great movement that we are making toward freedom.”32

  The following day, Montgomery Advertiser editor Joe Azbell interviewed King. Azbell asked him if he was afraid, to which King replied: “No I’m not. My attitude is that this is a great cause, it is a great issue that we are confronted with and that the consequences for my personal life are not particularly important.” Convinced that this was his hour to “stand up and be counted,” he reflected on the perils of fear: “My great prayer is always for God to save me from the paralysis of crippling fear, because I think when a person lives with the fears of the consequences for his personal life he can never do anything in terms of lifting the whole of humanity and solving many of the social problems which we confront in every age and every generation.”33

  Reverend Thomas Thrasher of the ACHR penned an article in early 1956 describing the feeling on the ground in Montgomery. Thrasher, one of the few white pastors willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of many of the MIA’s complaints, highlighted the communication gap between the races: “the patterns of our past communication are breaking, and new patterns are not yet formed. We know them, and yet in our knowing we are aware that we know them not. The nightmare persists even when we hear words and see gestures. They speak. We do not understand.” In assessing the prospects for the future, Thrasher bemoaned many of the unintended outcomes of the boycott: “Our experience in Montgomery, a city known in the past for its good race relations, shows us that change, any change, will be painful for some of us, and that sudden change may operate in reverse and bring about what is not wanted. The Negro is surely regretful to see his bus boycott contribute to the growth of the White Citizens’ Council.” Following King’s trial and conviction, the communication gap continued to widen in Montgomery. The city had elected to get tough with the protesters, and the MIA was not about to back down.34

  On April 23, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Fleming v. South Carolina Electric and Gas Company that segregation on any public transportation was illegal. In response, National City Lines, the parent company of Montgomery City Lines, ordered its drivers to not enforce local segregation laws on their buses any longer. The following day, Police Commissioner Sellers announced his intention to arrest any bus drivers who permitted integrated seating on their buses. When the bus company vowed to stand behind any arrested bus drivers, Montgomery commissioners threatened to revoke National City Lines’ franchise in the city. With the two parties deadlocked in the dispute, King addressed the MIA at a mass meeting, urging the passage of a resolution that would continue the bus boycott until the city chose to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court. Those present supported the resolution unanimously. At the end of his remarks, King offered a word of encouragement: “Eventually, segregation in public transportation will pass away, eventually. And I think we should start preparing now for the inevitable. And let us, when that moment comes, go into the situations that we confront with a great deal of dignity, sanity, and reasonableness.” King continued to pray that Montgomery’s leaders would have “the wisdom to see the vision of goodness in the Cradle of the Confederacy.” For the time being, his prayers remained unanswered. After over two weeks of haggling between the City of Montgomery and National City Lines, on May 9 Judge Walter B. Jones found that local and state segregation laws were constitutional, and therefore directed bus drivers to once again enforce segregation on Montgomery city buses. The bus company chose to abide by the ruling.35

  Through his preaching, King attempted to buttress his message of hope with a call to responsible preparation for the challenges and opportunities of the freedom struggle. In a sermon delivered to his Dexter congregation on Mother’s Day, King encouraged mothers to take seriously their “responsibility to prepare for this great moment of history.” He called for mothers to instill within their children “a sense of dignity and self-respect. Start teaching your child early that he is somebody.” Recognizing that a legal victory tearing down segregation would not result in a level playing field, he called for parents to model and expect excellence from their children, conceding that “the Negro must work a little harder than the white man, for he who gets behind must run a little harder or forever remain behind.” King also honored mothers of the past “who didn’t know the difference between ‘you does’ and ‘you don’t,’ but who wanted their offspring to ‘get it all.’” He added that “mothers not only ought to be praised for their greatness, but for keeping on.” The message of simply “keeping on” was apt for the protest movement, as the hot summer months approached with no settlement in sight.36

  As the boycott entered its sixth month, King and other MIA officials recognized that the battle in Montgomery was more of a distance race than a sprint. King offered suggestions to the MIA board regarding how to better pace themselves for the long haul. Among his recommendations was a reduction of mass meetings down to one each week and limiting this Monday evening gathering to ninety minutes. He also stressed the need to increase the political voice of African Americans in Montgomery through voting and voter registration. He announced that Jo Ann Robinson would edit a bimonthly newsletter to keep people better informed of MIA developments. Additionally, King advocated a plan to increase their “economic power through the establishment of a bank,” appointing a committee to apply for a charter in the near future.37

  The concern for greater economic power had been a part of the agenda of the boycott since its inception. One of the original demands of the boycotters was that Montgomery City Lines hire black drivers to drive on largely African American routes. This condition set by the MIA reflected a felt need among the community for greater economic opportunities. All indications are that the boycott provided a boon to the black economy in Montgomery. Rufus Lewis, who led the transportation efforts for a period, claimed that black businesses were aided: “We buy all our gas from eight Negro filling stations. There is an appeal in mass meetings to trade with Negroes. This whole thing has brought about closer cooperation between Negroes.” In an article, King sounded a similar note: “We have observed that small Negro shops are thriving as Negroes find it inconvenient to walk downtown to the white stores,” concluding, “we have a new respect for the proper use of our dollar.” As summer approached, an end to the bus boycott was nowhere in sight, but the protest had brought an unexpected economic boost to Montgomery’s black citizens.38

  Although the economic effects warrant attention, many argued the greatest significance of the boycott was how it united the African American community in Montgomery. Later accounts typically describe this as a time when a previously divided people came together for a common cause. While the car pools provided a degree of independence from the white economy, the car rides also served as a powerful time for boycott participants to share stories and build community. Many drivers saw their task as far more than transporting people from one place to another. They attempted to lighten the mood, some with jokes and stories about whites that gave some respite from the daily grind. Drivers frequently reminded passengers of the power of God, turning their seat into a pulpit for the duration of the trip. They saw their time in the car pool as crucial to keeping the people united, encouraged, and confident. Jo Ann Robinson noted that by the time folks reached their destination, “they were laughing as if that mood of faith had been with them all day.” As many of the drivers represented Montgomery’s professionals, and many of the riders were from the working class, the car pools served to provide greater unity among the classes. Robinson even believed “the line between the higher class and the proletariat has broken down—‘We are in this thing together’ is the spirit on both levels.”39

  The regular mass meetings also provided an opportunity for the community to come together, leading many to view these gatherings as th
e heartbeat of the movement. The services also allowed boycott leaders, including many of the city’s preachers, to play a more public role in the movement. They became a place where the professional classes could join maids and day laborers in a common cause. One veteran pastor who had already earned the respect of many in the city prior to the boycott was Reverend Solomon Seay. King later called him “one of the few clerical voices that, in the years preceding the protest, had lashed out against the injustices heaped on the Negro, and urged his people to a greater appreciation of their own worth.” King noted his speeches “raised the spirits of all who heard him.” Seay himself viewed the movement as primarily spiritual, with Christianity providing “a common ground upon which everyone could stand.” In Seay’s mind, the unifying effect of the boycott was best understood “as the work and purpose of God being fulfilled at the historical moment in American history.”40

  Mass meetings would become one of the defining forms of the civil rights movement. Boycott participant Alfreida Dean Thomas credited the gatherings for helping her feel “for the first time that here were people who had been separated just on really fictitious reasons but were now together in oneness of purpose. This alone was enough to make a good feeling.” King claimed the attendance at mass meetings included both professionals and the working class: “The vast majority present were working people; yet there was always an appreciable number of professionals in the audience.” He went on to claim that “the so-called ‘big Negroes’ who owned cars and had never ridden the buses came to know the maids and laborers who rode the buses every day. Men and women who had been separated from each other by false standards of class were now singing and praying together in a common struggle for freedom and human dignity.”41