Becoming King

by Troy Jackson

  38. West, interview by Lee; Virginia Durr to Jessica Mitford, March 1955, in Sullivan, ed., Freedom Writer, 84–85. See also Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, March 22, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc).

  39. Virginia Durr to Jessica Mitford, March 1955, April 8, 1955, May 5, 1955, and May 6, 1955, in Sullivan, ed., Freedom Writer, 84–87. At an NAACP meeting in July, the attorney Fred Gray indicated he “paid 47.50 for the Claudette Colvin case transcript. Since the violation of the segregation of transportation law charge was dismissed against her, the NAACP has no case but to have her exonerated of the assault and battery charge.” Noting Colvin was on probation and a ward of the state, Gray informed the executive committee that he had filed a motion for a new trial, hoping she would be exonerated due to false arrest. The branch agreed to appeal the Colvin case on these grounds (Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, July 13, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers [NN-Sc]).

  40. Abernathy, “The Natural History of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 109–10.

  41. King Jr., “Other Mountains,” May 15, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 214. See also Trenholm to King, May 2, 1955, ibid., 2: 556–57.

  42. Rosa Parks, minutes, mass meeting at First CME Church, June 19, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc); King, “The Peril of Superficial Optimism in the Area of Race Relations,” June 19, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 214–15; King Jr., “Discerning the Signs of History,” June 26, 1955, ibid., 6: 216–19.

  43. King Jr., “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,” July 24, 1955, Folder 101, Sermon File.

  44. Graetz, A White Preacher’s Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1998), 35–37.

  45. Ibid., 50.

  46. Juliette Morgan to William A. Gayle, July 13, 1955, Box 4, Morgan Papers.

  47. Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, July 13, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc). Founded in 1932, the Highlander Folk School served as a critical southern training center for labor and civil rights activists.

  48. Rosa Parks to Mrs. Henry F. Shepherd, July 6, 1955, Mss 265, Folder 22, Box 22, Highlander Research and Education Center; Parks, with Haskins, Rosa Parks: My Story, 102–7.

  49. Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, August 14, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc).

  50. Virginia Durr to Jessica Mitford, May 6, 1955, in Sullivan, ed., Freedom Writer, 87–88; Yeakey, “The Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott, 1955–56,” 9–13, 16–18.

  51. Yeakey, “The Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott, 1955–1956,” 22–23. Lamont Yeakey, in his dissertation on the bus boycott, claims that Montgomery’s black clubs and social organizations “crisscrossed class, geographic, and occupational lines.” His only support for this assertion is based on an anecdote of a time when a club reached out to help a poor family who had lost their home to a fire when they heard about the family’s plight. While such charitable contributions did provide some connection between the classes, they were predicated on a paternalistic model of racial uplift. For the most part, the clubs and social circles reinforced rather than broke down class distinctions (ibid., 50–53).

  52. King Jr., “Worship,” August 7, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 222–25. In Stride toward Freedom, King used similar language to describe his earliest impressions of Dexter: “I was anxious to change the impression in the community that Dexter was a sort of silk-stocking church catering only to a certain class. Often it was referred to as the ‘big folks church.’ Revolting against this idea, I was convinced that worship at its best is a social experience with people of all levels of life coming together to realize their oneness and unity under God. Whenever the church, consciously or unconsciously, caters to one class it loses the spiritual force of the ‘whosoever will, let them come’ doctrine, and is in danger of becoming little more than a social club with a thin veneer of religiosity” (25).

  53. King Jr., “Looking Beyond Your Circumstances,” September 18, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 225–30.

  54. For more on the death of Emmett Till and its significance, see Whit-field, A Death in the Delta. King, “Pride versus Humility,” September 25, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 230–34.

  55. King Jr., “The Impassable Gulf (The Parable of Dives and Lazarus),” October 2, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 235–39. In developing this sermon, King relied on George Buttrick’s insights on the parable (see Buttrick, The Parables of Jesus, 87–91).

  56. J. Mills Thornton III, “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 338–39.

  57. “Annual of the Alabama Baptist State Convention, 1955,” “Special Session,” September 15, 1955; “Regular Session,” November 15, 16, 17, 1955, Birmingham, Ala., p. 125, LPR 135, Folder 7, Box 7, Alabama State Archives.

  58. Alabama Council on Human Relations newsletter, no. 4 (October 1955), Folder 5, Box 4, Baskin Papers.

  59. King Jr., “The One-Sided Approach of the Good Samaritan,” November 20, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 239–40.

  60. Largely unaware of the content of many of King’s early Dexter sermons, Richard Lischer erroneously concluded: “During the summer and fall of 1955 Pastor King reverted to a more philosophical style of preaching. He delivered well-rounded statements on the meaning of life, such as ‘Discerning the Signs of History,’ ‘The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,’ and ‘The One-Sided Approach of the Good Samaritan.’ During the first year he rarely attacked the problem of racism in Montgomery, though he did encourage and finally require NAACP membership and voter registration. When the bus crisis broke in December of that year, he suddenly found a focus and a climax for his sermons. The abstractions give way to the demands of the struggle. The sign of history par excellence is liberation. The evil that must die upon the seashore is segregation. The Good Samaritan now teaches not merely love but a dangerous love between the races. Everything has changed.” He also mistakenly concludes that “In King’s early speeches, the viciousness of racism is minimized” (Lischer, The Preacher King, 83–84, 87). King later described his first eighteen months in Montgomery as a time when “there was a ground swell of discontent. Such men as Vernon Johns and E. D. Nixon had never tired of keeping the problem before the conscience of the community. When others had feared to speak, they had spoken with courage. When others had dared not take a stand, they had stood with valor and determination.” He later added: “through the work of men like Johns and Nixon there had developed beneath the surface a slow fire of discontent, fed by the continuing indignities and inequities to which the Negroes were subjected. These were fearless men who created the atmosphere for the social revolution that was slowly developing in the Cradle of the Confederacy. But this discontent was still latent in 1954” (King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 38–39).

  4. “They Are Willing to Walk”

  1. Gray, Leventhal, Sikora, and Thornton, The Children Coming On, 13.

  2. Jo Ann Robinson, leaflet, Another Negro woman has been arrested, December 2, 1955, Montgomery County District Attorney’s Files.

  3. Gray, Bus Ride to Justice, 52. Steven M. Millner also stresses this point: “Nixon, and his political allies, Robinson and Burks, continued to move rapidly because they sensed they had to outflank the generally conservative local black clergy” (Millner, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A Case Study in the Emergence of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 452). Garrow, ed., The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, 53. Regarding Robinson’s critical role in the genesis of the boycott, her fellow WPC member Mary Fair Burks reflected: “nobody worked more diligently than she did as a member of the board of the Montgomery Improvement Association and as a representative of the Women’s Political Council. Although others had contemplated a boycott, it was due in large part to
Jo Ann’s unswerving belief that it could be accomplished, and her never-failing optimism that it would be accomplished, and her selflessness and unbounded energy that it was accomplished” (Crawford, Rouse, and Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 75). Rosa Parks, J. E. Pierce, Robert Graetz, “Montgomery Story,” August 21, 1956, Highlander Folk School Papers.

  4. Southern Exposure 9, no. 1 (Spring 1981): 14. According to David Garrow, Abernathy called King before Nixon’s second call, and persuaded King to support the boycott (Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 18). Ibid., 53.

  5. Garrow, ed., The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, 48–50. B. J. Simms, in an interview with Steven M. Millner, discussed the Alabama State College president’s response to the boycott: “Trenholm just understood. He did not give any orders. He did not mention it. Did not try to curtail anybody. He was all for it. But officially he would never acknowledge it. He just didn’t know, so to speak. He could be hypocritical just like white folks were” (Simms, interview by Millner, January 9, 1979, 584).

  6. Garrow, ed., The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, 55; Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jo Ann Robinson, leaflet, Don’t Ride the Bus, December 2, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3: 67. Abernathy, “The Natural History of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 118. In his thesis, Abernathy often referred to his own observations in the third person, as in his telling of this encounter between him and King, which he credits to “a distinguished Baptist preacher and perhaps the most effective leader of the movement in respect to strategies and operational tactics.” Participants in the meeting at Dexter have remembered the gathering differently. King asserted that Bennett was so excited about the boycott, and so eager to direct the efforts, that he charged, “This is no time to talk; it is time to act.” Only after nearly an hour of protests from the forty plus at the meeting did Bennett yield the floor, at which point plans for the boycott developed (King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 46–48). Robinson remembered more than a hundred turning out for the meeting, highlighting the positive outcomes of the meeting rather than emphasizing any of its tension (Garrow, ed., The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, 55–56). Rosa Parks recalled a more divided meeting: “Some of the ministers wanted to talk about how to support the protest, but others wanted to talk about whether or not to have a protest. Many of them left the meeting before any decisions were made” (Parks, Haskins, Rosa Parks: My Story, 129). Uriah Fields asserts that Bennett opposed the boycott, which may have added to the aggravation of those gathered (Fields, Inside the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 36). Ralph Abernathy elevated his role in the meeting, saying Nixon had left it to him to make sure things went well in Nixon’s absence. Believing he had arranged for Reverend Hubbard to lead the meeting, Abernathy was shocked when Hubbard announced Bennett would be presiding. After Bennett rambled on for some time, and with only around twenty people remaining, Abernathy claims he interrupted and took the chair for the rest of the meeting (Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 138–39).

  7. Crawford, Rouse, and Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 82–83; Edgar N. French, “The Beginning of a New Age,” 1962, in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 177.

  8. Crawford, Rouse, and Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 83.

  9. Ibid., 72–74.

  10. King, “Why Does God Hide Himself?” December 4, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 241–42. King borrowed the title and theme of his sermon from Robert McCracken, “Why Does God Hide Himself?” Radio Sermon, April 27, 1947. King kept a copy of McCracken’s sermon in his homiletic files (King Jr., Folder 165, Sermon File).

  11. Abernathy, “The Natural History of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 119.

  12. Warrant, City of Montgomery vs. Rosa Parks, December 5, 1955; Transcript of Record and Proceedings, City of Montgomery vs. Rosa Parks, December 5, 1955; Appeal Bond, City of Montgomery vs. Rosa Parks, December 5, 1955 (File 4559, Circuit Court, Montgomery County Records, Montgomery County Court House). Fred Gray mistakenly claimed Parks was found guilty of disorderly conduct (Gray, Bus Ride to Justice, 55–56). See also Thornton, Dividing Lines, 596–97n71. Nixon, interview by Millner, 547. Nixon also claimed regarding Parks’s court case: “But you know, King, he wasn’t there.” According to Fred Gray, Ralph Abernathy, and personal recollections in his memoir of the boycott, King was in fact at the courthouse that morning (Gray, Bus Ride to Justice, 55–57; Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 142; King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 55).

  13. Fields, Inside the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 41; Abernathy, “The Natural History of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 129–30.

  14. King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 56–57.

  15. Ibid., 56–58.

  16. Fields, interview by Millner, 534.

  17. Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 21–22. Steven M. Millner suggests the demand for black bus drivers was included to placate E. D. Nixon, “whose grass-roots organizing had put him in contact with hundreds of black men who had hopes that they could hold dignified and clean jobs. Many of these, who were called the ‘forgotten fellows’ by Nixon, had been ignored by their government and many local ‘tie and collar’ blacks, these individuals were appealed to by this request, and in other ways by leaders like E. D. Nixon” (Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 468). J. Mills Thornton also speculates that the demand to hire black bus drivers reflected the influence of Nixon in his meeting with French and Abernathy. He argues that Nixon was far more passionate about this demand than the clergy involved in the boycott (Thornton, “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 599); Edgar N. French, “The Beginning of a New Age,” 1962, ibid., 179.

  18. Robinson, interview by Lee; Alabama Tribune, December 16, 1955.

  19. King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 59, 101.

  20. MIA mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, December 5, 1955, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3: 71–74; King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 63.

  21. Lewis and Ligon, interview by Lumpkin.

  22. Gray, Leventhal, Sikora, and Thornton, The Children Coming On, 137; American Socialist 3, no. 4 (April 1956): 10.

  23. Norman Walton, “The Walking City: A History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 30. Walton’s article was originally published in five installments in the Negro History Bulletin, beginning in October 1956 and ending in January 1958. Walton was a professor of history at Alabama State College. For more on the significance of early cab and carpool rides, see Millner, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott,” in Garrow, ed., The Walking City, 474.

  24. James Cone incorrectly assumes King did not develop his love ethic until later, stressing the central role of justice as his grounding principle early in the boycott: “No interpreter of King has identified justice as the primary focus of his thinking at the start of the Montgomery bus boycott. Most are so eager to stress love as the center of his thought and actions (as King himself did when he reflected on the event) that they (like King) fail to note that this was a later development in his thinking” (Cone, Martin and Malcolm and America, 63). While King did focus more of his Holt Street address on justice than love, his sermons prior to the bus protest reveal that the centrality of love was a core principle King brought to the movement, rather than one he gained through the struggle. Cone is right to emphasize the centrality of justice in King’s pre-boycott preaching as well. In King’s view, the love ethic of Jesus demanded a commitment to justice. For evidence of King’s emphasis on love prior to the boycott, see King, “Loving Your Enemies,” August 31,1952, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 126–28; and “God’s Love,” September 5, 1954, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 179–81. In his study of King’s preaching, Richard Lischer also argues a transformation occurred during the boycott. Although unaware of the gradual sharpening of King’s preaching in the mo
nths prior to his Holt Street address, Lischer captures the essence of the growth King experienced during this season: “After the Boycott had commenced, King’s Sunday morning sermons found a new purpose and vitality. The specificity of race, which he had assiduously avoided in his graduate education, now sharpened the point of his biblical interpretation and preaching. No one sermon captured the transformation that was taking place within him, but his first major rhetorical triumph, the address to the massed protesters at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, left him changed utterly” (Lischer, The Preacher King, 85).