The Seminarian

by Patrick Parr

  Great Theologians

  “After the Bible has been stripped of all its mythological and non-historical content, the liberal theologian must be able to answer the question—what then?”

  —Martin Luther King Jr.30

  For two hours every Friday afternoon, ML took a seat in a classroom on the first floor of the main building and listened to a short, kind man named George Washington Davis tell him about the great theologians who had come before him—tales of men such as Karl Barth, Walter Rauschenbusch, Thomas of Aquinas, and his namesake Martin Luther.

  ML had dreams of one day joining their ranks, and he wasn’t shy in telling his fellow students about them. “More than once,” Marcus Wood recalled, “he told us how he hoped to be ‘immortalized,’ by heeding the fiery prophets of the Eighth Century [BC, such as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah]. . . . We simply laughed at him. . . . He had wild, wild dreams of what he would accomplish in society.”31

  ML’s mind wandered in class, and he had a habit of writing lines in the gaps of his notebook that at least sounded like the words of a great spiritual leader. It was likely in Davis’s Great Theologians class that ML scribbled the following inside the cover of his notebook, a sentence yearning to be spoken with echoes:

  We are experiencing cold and whistling winds of despair in a world sparked by turbulence.32

  Though young ML may have been fond of grandiose sentiment and larger-than-life ancient figures, Davis’s class focused on religiously driven individuals whom ML was able to apprehend on a more human level. Criticizing the Old Testament prophets would be akin to punching a cloud puff. But Martin Luther? That was different. ML’s opinion was that although the German theologian was courageous in rebelling against the Catholic Church, he didn’t care enough for the common people of his time.33 And after listening to a sermon by contemporary Swiss theologian Karl Barth for class, ML was appreciative of the views he expressed but far less laudatory of his skills as a preacher, complaining that Barth “left the average mind lost in the fog of theological abstractions. . . . For these reasons I found this sermon very boring.”34 Such examples were just what ML needed in order to anchor his dreams to the ground.

  Professor Davis was himself an accepting, nonjudgmental professor with a smooth yet commanding voice. He was seen as a pacifist who “opposed all wars,” and one student thought he came across in the classroom as “very serious and a bit distant.”35 Outside of class, Davis opened up, inviting students to his home, located just behind Old Main. Since Davis was also the chairman of the scholarship committee, many of the conversations focused on “the next step,” such as earning a doctorate. “He was a marvelous teacher,” ML wrote years later, “conversant with the trends of modern culture and yet sincerely religious. He was warm and Christian. It was easy to get close to him.”36

  Off Campus: “This Food Is Good, Man! I Can’t Wait on Y’all”

  By his second term, with his friend Walter McCall at his side, ML was settling into life at Crozer, both on campus and off. The Crozer grounds themselves were known to many as “the most beautiful spot in Chester.” They covered forty acres, lined with silver maple trees that the Crozer family had imported from China in the early 1870s. The trees shaded the students from the daily rigor of Chester, a manufacturing port with a population hovering near seventy-five thousand. For students who didn’t have their own car, a local bus stopped in front of Old Main to pick up anyone looking to head into downtown Chester or, more often, to the Chester train station, where they then could make their way to Philadelphia. ML was carless most of his time at seminary, but he usually preferred to rely on friends with cars, including Walter McCall and Horace Whitaker (he loved Whit’s Chevy “Power Glide”), to take him to places off campus.37

  Another classmate who took part in ML’s off-campus excursions was a southern white student named Dupree Jordan. Jordan graduated from Mercer University in 1947, the year before pistol-waving Lucius Hall, but the similarities stop there; Dupree and ML became friends early in their first year. Mercer was located in Macon, Georgia, so Dupree and ML at least had local culture to talk about. The chairman of the Crozer student athletics committee, Jordan was active by nature, and he saw ML as introverted by comparison: “He was very studious; he spent a lot more time on his lesson assignments than most of us did.”38

  One day, ML and Dupree decided to travel to downtown Philadelphia to grab a bite to eat. They chose Stouffer’s, a sit-down restaurant. Jordan had recently contributed an article to the Chester Times after attending Reinhold Niebuhr’s December 12 visit to Swarthmore College, located five miles from the Crozer campus. Though ML hadn’t yet become too deeply immersed in Niebuhr, he would have been fascinated by Jordan’s account of the contemporary theologian’s visit.39 But five minutes passed as they sat at their table at Stouffer’s, waiting for a server. No one. Ten minutes . . . still no one.

  The restaurant wasn’t busy, yet something all too familiar was occurring, and ML must have sensed it. “Finally,” said Jordan, “we demanded service, and we got service. . . . Unfortunately, in one or more of his vegetables that he was served, he had sand on his plate.”40

  ML had every right to speak up. This wasn’t the South. The restaurant wasn’t segregated. All ML wanted was a decent plate of food with a friend. But, Jordan remembered, “he took it rather quietly, and did not want to make demands that would make a scene.”41

  Although far superior to cities in the South, Philadelphia circa 1948 was not exactly a model of civil rights progress. Within its city limits sat a heartbreaking collection of impoverished black neighborhoods. Chester’s racial culture was similar, but Crozer Theological Seminary served as an oasis of liberalism and equal rights.

  After the sand-in-his-vegetables incident, it must have been clearer to ML how miraculous the Crozer campus was. Perhaps Jordan, after the incident, relayed to ML the words he’d heard from Reinhold Niebuhr at Swarthmore: “The establishment of a successful working community is the only true test of a worthwhile religion . . . but self-righteous pride makes this difficult.”42

  ML’s sister, Christine, would have been the only one in ML’s family to fully understand the incident at Stouffer’s. When it came to their education, ML and Christine were living parallel lives. After graduating from Atlanta’s predominantly black, female-only Spelman College in 1948, Christine took a segregated train bound for New York City with her friend Juanita Sellers. They ate their packed meals in the “colored dining car.” As Christine recalled, “We were separated from the white passengers by two curtains.”43

  Christine and Juanita ended up at the Emma Ransom YWCA House, located at 175 West 137th Street in Harlem. Christine was there to attend Columbia University Teachers College, hoping to earn a master’s degree in education. Her plan was to then return to Atlanta to become a teacher.

  While Christine and Juanita lived at Emma Ransom, ML and Mac would often snag a train from the Philadelphia station and head up to NYC to see them. “Juanita and I waited like giddy schoolgirls for their arrival.” Although ML was one year younger than Christine, Daddy King wanted ML to keep an eye on her, to protect her from “all the slick boys up North.”44 Christine noticed that even after such a short time away from Atlanta, ML’s character had already started to mature. “It was at Crozer that ML became serious about his studies, much more so than he had been at Morehouse. His intellectual curiosity was sharpened, focused, and challenged.”45

  Yes, he’d grown more serious, but he still knew how to have a good time. McCall remembered that during one trip to New York City, he and ML decided to eat at a high-class restaurant. “I can’t remember the name,” McCall said, “but it was truly a heavenly place in appearance.” By then, ML was notorious among family and close friends for his casual eating habits. In a fine NYC restaurant, surrounded by well-mannered customers with sophisticated dining etiquette, ML went the other direction. “Instead of . . . putting on the dog in terms of table manners, he brought his same old country
habits of eating there; and we just rolled. We just couldn’t help from rolling.” When ML grabbed the food with his hands, he shook his head at everyone and said, “This food is good, man! I can’t wait on y’all.” As King once famously said, “Eating is my great sin.” Mac concurred, recalling that ML “ate wherever he could.”46

  Christine and Juanita visited Chester as well, where they stayed at Rev. Barbour’s house, since only Crozer students and staff were allowed inside Old Main. Christine, even a half century later, remembered her time there. She and ML “enjoyed frequent dinners at the home of Reverend Dr. J. Pius Barbour. . . . These dinners provided additional mental stimulation [for ML], and allowed for intellectual debate and spirited conversation.”47

  In between his verbal jousts with Rev. Barbour, ML thought about the women around him. Christine’s friend Juanita was one of a few Atlanta women whom he considered going with. They had dated on and off in the past, but according to Juanita, ML thought her “too liberated” to be a suitable wife. Dating Juanita would have also meant being reminded of Atlanta and the long shadow of Daddy King, who was apt to scrutinize any potential wife his son might consider.48

  Besides, ML had this new northern world to consider. In addition to the local girls “running him down,” ML had started casually seeing an “almost white” woman at Marcus Wood’s church in Woodbury, New Jersey.*4 And his friendship with Betty Moitz continued to develop as their chats moved out of Miss Hannah’s basement kitchen.

  Most of their time together was now spent talking innocently around campus, safe from the cold stares that would have come from the residents of downtown Chester. And soon ML was also making the straight five-minute walk from Old Main to visit her at the Moitz home. “He used to go over their house quite often to see her,” said Marcus Wood.49

  ML felt at ease with Betty. “He would talk, and talk and talk,” Betty says. More than anything, she enjoyed his rumbling enthusiasm and his sincerity. At first they discussed his time in the South and how different it was from the idealized culture within the seminary. He didn’t yet know how but, according to Betty, “one thing ML knew at age nineteen was that he could change the world.”50

  3

  Finding a Voice

  Term 3, February 22–

  May 6, 1949

  Calvary Baptist Church: “You Cannot Escape Yourself”

  Just months into his education at Crozer, ML was putting what he’d learned into practice in front of congregations in Chester and the surrounding area. Although some members of Rev. Barbour’s Calvary Baptist Church recall hearing King preach in the fall of 1948, his first documented appearance at a local church came on February 27, 1949, when he delivered a sermon at Prospect Hill Baptist Church, a four-mile drive from campus.*1 The service had been publicized in the Chester Times as open to everyone “regardless of race, creed or color.” The newspaper even included a photo of ML above the article.1 Fellow black seminarians would have smirked at their young friend’s momentary spike of local fame, proud and jealous at the same time.

  Twenty-year-old Martin Luther King Jr.’s photo in the Chester Times, February 26, 1949. Used with permission of the Delaware County Daily Times

  But his next scheduled sermon was perhaps more meaningful to ML himself. On March 9 he was to deliver a sermon at Calvary Baptist, and impressing his mentor Rev. Barbour would have required careful preparation. The notes of his sermon “Facing Life’s Inescapables,” developed for the most part in Keighton’s preaching courses, would be his starting point.2

  In the week before his appearance at Calvary, ML pored over his notes in room 52 of Old Main, his heater turned on, its tick-tick-ticking sound interrupting the quiet.

  You cannot escape yourself, he’d written . . .

  But . . . hadn’t he tried? Hadn’t his decision to live in the North, to attend a seminary almost eight hundred miles away from his family, been in part an escape from the heavy legacy offered by his father? It would have been easy for ML to imagine having taken Daddy King’s path instead: a packed Ebenezer Baptist congregation, a confident young minister spouting sophisticated verbal fire, local Atlanta girls smiling at the available bachelor. . . . And when he’d made the decision to study up north, he knew he’d be leaving behind a confused father. His sister, Christine, confirmed it: “I’m sure Daddy didn’t think he necessarily needed to go that far from home, but they both knew the future beckoned.”3

  As kind as Crozer had been to him thus far, ML realized he didn’t need to remain there. Perhaps he was simply delaying the inevitable. Marcus Wood had heard ML talk about the “guilt” he felt, being up in the North enjoying almost unimaginable cultural freedom—a few of the black students had called Crozer a piece of heaven—while others suffered in the dark recesses of the South. Had ML abandoned his responsibility to his home and his people in selfish pursuit of personal goals?

  No, he thought. This was a chance to broaden his perspective. In only six months, he’d begun to see America in a new light. It would have been easy to remain in the South. After graduating from Morehouse, ML could have joined his father at Ebenezer and grown into his role naturally and comfortably—protected by his father’s legacy and status, nourished by his kind and loving mother’s cooking, the company of his younger brother, AD, and a ready circle of friends. Even now, a life in Atlanta was all set up for him; at any point he could drop out of Crozer and move back home. But if he went back now, or if he’d never left, then his view of the world would have remained firmly rooted in southern soil.

  With his appearance at Calvary Baptist only days away, ML went on to his next sermon point: You cannot escape sacrifice . . .

  That’s right. A sacrifice. Had he escaped his old self by leaving Atlanta behind? Perhaps. But he’d also sacrificed familiarity for an experience that could potentially change his life. He wanted to become better, in every sense of the word, and that required sacrifice. He thought of others who’d sacrificed in order to become better. Singers such as Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, and Roland Hayes came to mind, as did one of his favorite boxers growing up.

  ML, like millions of others, had listened on the radio to Joe Louis’s fights, as the Brown Bomber inspired his fellow African Americans by knocking out Max Schmeling in 1938 and giving his fans hope. He’d been a walking symbol of empowerment. Maya Angelou once wrote, “If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help.”4 After a punishing fight against Jersey Joe Walcott in June 1948 that Louis won with a dramatic eleventh-round knockout, the nation assumed he would soon retire from boxing, but it wasn’t until the Brown Bomber submitted a letter of resignation to the National Boxing Association on March 1, 1949, that he made it official. Louis had had enough.

  ML inserted the breaking news of Joe Louis’s announcement into his sermon notes. He even added a flourish of appreciation, calling him “probably the greatest boxer in history. . . . Joe Louis realized early that he could not stay up all night drinking and [carousing] if he was to be the chapion [sic] of the world.”5

  On the night of Wednesday, March 9, ML stood in front of Rev. Barbour’s congregation. Calvary Baptist was a bit smaller than Ebenezer; where his father’s church had three sets of pews, Calvary had two sets of pews twenty rows deep, and a narrower floor area. Although its congregation at the time was predominantly black, most of the parishioners had been raised in the free North. As ML took his place behind the pulpit, he knew his voice and words would be reaching a more liberated audience.

  As one reads “Facing Life’s Inescapables” and compares it to ML’s future sermons, what quickly stands out is the rigid, Keighton-inspired format. It reflects the persona ML had presented to his classmates in his early days at Crozer, with his immaculately pressed suit and perfectly shined shoes—the epitome of sophistication and professionalism, refined, tightly wound, and careful:

  We say that Jesus has been the most influential character in Western civilization, and as we read his sermon on the mount there is something about it that penetrate
s our very souls, but we must remember that at a very early age he sacrificed his time to God, and finally he sacrificed even his life. There are people who expect the best in life without effort. But I tell you . . . whatever your potentialities may be, they will amount to little or nothing unless you subject yourself to hard work and discipline.

  For a young man officially ordained as a minister only thirteen months earlier, and with Barbour’s judging eyes looking on, some nervousness would have been natural. But that night ML delivered his eight-minute sermon with as much confidence as he could muster. And regardless of the tension he felt, he still had his strong yet smooth baritone voice and his air of gravitas, thanks to his musically gifted mother and the authoritative Daddy King.

  Reviews of his early appearances at Calvary were mixed but encouraging. One parishioner described him as “quiet . . . maybe some thought he was aloof in the beginning.” Another recalled, “He stood tall, but he was not tall, and when he spoke . . . walls vibrated, because of his speech . . . I’ll never forget it.”6

  Calvary Baptist churchgoer Isaiah Bennett distinctly remembers the first time he saw ML in the pulpit one Sunday. ML had chosen as his topic Acts 27–28, the story of the Apostle Paul’s arduous journey to Rome, surviving shipwrecks and frequent brushes with death and starvation. At one point, when even Paul’s companion Luke has lost hope, Paul stands up and declares to the frightened sailors, “There shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.” Isaiah Bennett was inspired. “It was very touching. It put everybody to thinking there was a brighter day coming.”7