The Seminarian
Page 23
Kenneth Smith in June 1983. Courtesy of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, NY
At the time, Dr. King’s legacy appeared to be in good shape. On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan had signed a law designating Martin Luther King Day a federal holiday, which would first be celebrated on January 20, 1986. As he did so, Reagan praised Dr. King to the moon and back, saying of King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, “If American history grows from two centuries to twenty, his words that day will never be forgotten.”28
Around the time Reagan made these remarks, Kenneth Smith was resting at home, on sabbatical from Colgate Rochester Crozer. Smith had listened to the Senate hearings regarding the Martin Luther King Day bill, bristling at the “asinine comments” by Senator Jesse Helms, who’d filibustered against the idea of honoring King with a holiday. Smith was also unmoved by Reagan’s soaring words of praise—perhaps because Reagan had been reluctant to support the holiday as well, fretting about its tax implications all the way up to the day before he signed the bill.29
But what bothered him more about the lofty words commemorating the new holiday was that ML, his friend (“I would have trusted him with my life without thinking about it for a second”),30 was being pushed into a two-dimensional form of immortality. Had ML’s humanity already been forgotten, in less than two decades?
On January 15, 1986, Smith addressed a room full of King enthusiasts in Colgate Rochester Crozer’s Bexley Hall. In five days, the first Martin Luther King Day would be observed. Many in the audience were excited, but Rev. Smith had again been brooding. A few minutes into his talk, titled “The Radicalization of Martin Luther King Jr: The Last Five Years,” he laid out his anxiety as plainly as a Baptist preacher could:
Will the holiday be viewed as symbolic of the fact that King represented the brightest and the best of the American tradition of dissent in his struggle for social justice and peace, thus encouraging us to continue that struggle? Or will it assume simply a symbolic significance transcending its actual effect, thus turning King into just another irrelevant plastic hero, like Superman, perhaps to be sold at Christmastime, along with Rambo and Rocky. . . . I hope not, but I fear it will.31
You can hear the heaviness, the resignation, in Smith’s voice when he says the words I fear it will. He could see the future, and he knew there was little he could do to avert it.
But he could speak out. As he continued, his southern drawl started to gain steam, and he told the crowd in front of him what would become of the young man with whom he’d once shot pool and smoked in the catacombs of Old Main:
The King who will be eulogized will be the King of the March on Washington. . . . It is true that the “I Have a Dream” Speech was a rhetorical miracle, but it was not substantive. Nevertheless, this is the King who will be eulogized, because we [as a nation] have frozen Martin’s feet to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.32
Perhaps it was inevitable that King’s legacy would lose its edges. Father Time gets us all—even those immortalized by history. But life resists being snuffed out without a fight. In this book, I’ve tried to push back against the deification, and offer as nuanced a view as possible of the young man King once was. “My brother,” wrote Christine King, “was no saint, ordained as such at birth. Instead, he was an average and ordinary man, called by a God, in whom he had deep and abiding faith, to perform extraordinary deeds . . . for freedom, peace and justice. That, after all, is the best way each of us can celebrate Martin’s life.”33
The commemorative plaque currently on display outside Old Main on the former Crozer campus. This state marker, unveiled on July 27, 1992, was placed thanks in large part to the efforts of Chester resident Steven Evans. Photo by the author
Appendix A
Crozer Incoming Class of 1948
Full Name
City
Previous Education
Notes
1. Edwin Alonzo Brooks
Alexandria, VA
BA Bucknell University 1948
Graduated with King in May 1951
2. Percy C. Carter
Spartanburg, SC
BA Benedict College 1948
Dropped out after year 2
3. Eugene Hildreth Drew
Rensselaer, NY
BA Alderson- Broaddus 1948
Graduated with King in May 1951
4. James Joseph Greene
Portsmouth, VA
BA University of Richmond 1949
Admitted conditionally; ended up graduating with King in 1951.
5. Lucius Z. Hall Jr.
Hartsville, SC
BA Mercer University 1948
Dropped out after year 1
6. Robert E. Hopkins
Scranton, PA
BA Alderson- Broaddus 1948
Dropped out after year 2
7. Dupree Jordan
Atlanta, GA
BA Mercer University 1947
Dropped out after year 1
8. Martin Luther King
Atlanta, GA
BA Morehouse College 1948
Graduated May 1951
9. Joseph Timothy Kirkland
Philadelphia, PA
BA Virginia Union University 1948
Graduated with King May 1951
10. Wendall Atlas Maloch
Emerson, AR
BA Hillsdale College 1948
Graduated with King May 1951
11. Walter Raleigh McCall
Marion, SC
BA Morehouse College 1948
Graduated with King May 1951
12. Pierre S. Morgan
Philadelphia, PA
BA Virginia Union University 1948
Dropped out after year 1
13. Cyril George Pyle
Canal Zone, Panama
BA Virginia Union 1948
Graduated with King May 1951
* Nolton Woodrow Turner
Beach, VA
BA University of Richmond 1949
Joined class in year 2; withdrew temporarily in year 3; graduated May 1952
14. George T. Walton
St. Louis, MO
BA Shurtleff College 1948
Dropped out after year 2
15. Horace Edward Whitaker
Seaview, VA
BA Virginia Union 1948
Graduated with King May 1951
16. Marcus Garvey Wood
Charles Town, WV
BA Storer College 1948
Graduated with King May 1951
Appendix B
Events from ML’s Student
Body Presidency
Not much has been left behind regarding ML’s work as Crozer’s student body president. We know that he addressed the student body on several occasions and made sure the graduates of his class were given scarlet hoods. The most comprehensive information we have is for the two events below, which served as bookends to ML’s year at the head of student government.1
Crozer Orientation Schedule
September 7, 8 & 9, 1950
Thursday, September 7
Friday, September 8
Saturday, September 9
Late Morning: Luncheon
Faculty and families welcome new students to the Crozer campus
Early Afternoon: Addresses
Dean Charles E. Batten; Martin L. King, President of the Student Government Association
4 PM: Psychological Tests
6:30 PM: Dinner
Faculty and students, on campus
Around 7:30: Main Speaker
Rev. David MacQueen ’44; topic: “What Crozer Has Meant to Me”
9 AM: Main Address
Dr. George W. Davis; topic: “Our Local Environment”
9:45 AM: Information Session
Dr. Morton Scott Enslin; topic: “Responsibility for Academic Work”
10:30 AM: Library Info
Edward Starr, librarian, explains the academic materials available
on campus
11:30 AM: Devotions
Conducted by Dr. Raymond J. Bean
12:30 PM: Luncheon
Following lunch, students are taken on a tour of Philadelphia
9:30 AM: Devotions
Conducted by Dr. Raymond J. Bean.
9:45 AM: Main Address
Professor Robert Keighton; topic: “The Crozer Heritage”
10:30 AM: Discussion
Moderated by Dean Charles E. Batten; topic: “As I See Crozer”
12:30 PM: Luncheon
1:30 PM: Tour of Valley Forge
“The entire student body of 60 men and women, representing 17 states and four foreign countries (Egypt, China, Japan and the Panama Canal Zone), will be taken on a tour and picnic at Valley Forge in charge of librarian Edward Starr”
83rd Annual Commencement Exercises
May 6–8, 1951
Sunday, May 6
Monday, May 7
Tuesday, May 8
3:30 PM: In first-floor chapel of Old Main, Rev. Dr. Sankey L. Blanton delivers the baccalaureate speech
Theme: “The Cure for All Souls”
4:30 PM: Reception for the seniors. Located in the reception room of Old Main
10:15 AM: Annual Conference of Baptist Ministers of Philadelphia and Vicinity opens in the chapel
Main speaker: Dr. George D. Heaton, pastor from Charlotte, NC
3:30 PM: Alumni meet for a reunion. The Crozer classes 1901, ’06, ’11, ’16, ’21, ’26, ’31, ’36, ’41, and ’46 are welcome
4 PM: Sports and games
6 PM: Alumni dinner.
Rev. R. Carrington Paulette, pastor from Mount Airy, NC; topic: “The Privileges of Sons”
10:30 AM: Commencement Exercises begin inside Commencement Hall
Main speaker: Dr. Vernon B. Richardson, pastor of Baltimore’s University Baptist Church; topic: “The Preacher’s Heritage”
12 PM: Luncheon
Served in Old Main after formally leaving Commencement Hall
Appendix C
A Brief History of the Crozers and Old Main
“I feel much of the vanity and deceit of riches. . . . To feel the utter worthlessness of riches and yet all the time to be making haste to be rich, is a strange feature in human nature, or, at least, in mine.”
—John P. Crozer1
Samuel A. Crozer sat in his mother’s parlor with his three brothers. It was November 2, 1866, and the topic of the day was how to best honor their father. John P. Crozer had passed away eight months ago, and before his death he’d requested his children turn the building on a hill he bequeathed to them into something of “benevolent use.”2 But the Crozer sons sat somewhat flummoxed as to how best to proceed.
Money wasn’t an issue. Thanks to their father’s entrepreneurial spirit, the family controlled a local cotton and textile empire, so they had enough resources and influence to turn any reasonable dream into a reality. The question was what dream to pursue: “What will be the best purpose to which the property can be applied?”3 The cause of education had been on their minds, but if they did found a school, they wanted it to reflect the specific pursuits that defined their father’s life.
Inevitably, the discussion turned toward religion. The sons were vividly aware of how invested their father had been in the Baptist faith. John P. Crozer’s religious life started when he was baptized by a minister “in the Schuylkill River, near the Spruce Street wharf” at age fourteen in 1807.4 The Schuylkill emptied out into the Delaware River, with which every resident of Chester was familiar. Throughout his life, Mr. Crozer reaffirmed his religious commitment by frequenting the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, then attending Marcus Hook Baptist Church, and then, at this point a wealthy man, starting his own Upland Baptist Church, where he served as deacon.
As Crozer’s sons conversed, it became clear that the best way to honor their father was to pay tribute to the faith he held so dear. “How can we make it tell most for the cause of Christ?”5 They returned to an idea they’d first considered back in June, three months after their father passed: to found a theological seminary.
It would not be the first “benevolent use” to which John P. Crozer’s building on a hill was dedicated. Situated on twenty-three acres, the structure that would eventually be called Old Main was erected in 1857 as one of many contributions Mr. Crozer made to the local community. Initially it functioned as a “normal school,” where high school graduates trained to become teachers. Unfortunately, the school was forced to close after three and a half years, due partially to a lack of enrollment but more because of a “succession of epidemics—small pox and scarlet fever.”6
Postcard image of Old Main. Courtesy of Kate Stier
By the time the school closed, the United States was on the brink of the Civil War, and around 1861 the federal government made a deal with Mr. Crozer to turn the normal school and the surrounding area into a hospital for the military. Future Philadelphia City Hall architect John McArthur was hired to renovate and expand the building. McArthur’s plan was for the hospital to have the ability to care for 945 patients. Its capacity was tested in early July 1863, however, when the Battle of Gettysburg claimed the lives of fifty thousand soldiers and injured tens of thousands more. Hospitals throughout the state were called on to care for the wounded, and Old Main found itself filled to the brim with seventeen hundred soldiers. So came the future ghosts of Old Main, who would be remembered through holes cut into dorm room doors and signatures scrawled on the walls of John McArthur’s fourth-floor cupola.
A few of the hundreds of Civil War signatures scrawled across the cupola of the Old Main building. Courtesy of Kate Stier
By the time the war ended in 1865, Old Main was occupied by “two families and about one hundred students” enrolled at the Pennsylvania Military Academy.7 But within a year, John P. Crozer had passed away, and in his memory the Crozer family was poised to sweep aside Old Main’s connections to years of violent conflict and replace them with an institution emphasizing the teachings of peace.
By the end of that meeting in November 1866, the sons of John P. Crozer, led by Samuel, had firmly settled on establishing the Crozer Theological Seminary. They had also determined how to raise the funds to launch this ambitious venture. Among the four of them, with the help of their sister Margaret Knowles Crozer, they pooled their financial resources and made the following donations:
Buildings and grounds
$80,000
Cash for the erection of three houses for professors
$30,000
Cash for [lecture] endowment
$140,000
For library, by William Bucknell, Esq
$25,000
Total
$275,0008
The library had been Margaret’s idea, and William Bucknell was her husband. Unfortunately, Margaret came down with tuberculosis right around the time of the founding. She passed away in 1870, at the age of forty-two. Her husband named the library building Pearl Hall in her honor, the name Margaret deriving from the Latin word for pearl.
Meanwhile, the Crozer family appointed Dr. Henry G. Weston as the seminary’s first president and professor of pastoral duties. Dr. G. D. B. Pepper would accept the position of professor of Christian theology. Working together, these men and the Crozer family crafted a charter—a long and winding sentence that Martin Luther King Jr. would have frequently seen on the bulletins placed in his mailbox:
It is proposed to establish a Theological Seminary at Upland, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, under the auspices of the Baptist denomination, for the preparation of candidates for the sacred ministry, by providing them with thorough instruction in biblical, theological and other religious learning, by cultivating moral and religious affections and habits, and by training them in the practice of the various duties which devolve upon them as preachers, pastors and missionaries.9
In addition, they established a framework for the academic curriculum, dividing it into four categories: in
terpretation of the Bible, Christian theology, church history, and preaching and pastoral duties.
It’s remarkable how true Crozer Theological Seminary remained to their charter and original curriculum. Even eighty years after the charter was written, when the Crozer sons who’d sat dreaming in their mother’s parlor had long passed, Martin Luther King Jr. entered Crozer surrounded mainly by students with a Baptist background. Over time (to keep enrollment consistent) the school had come to welcome students from all Protestant denominations, but Crozer’s heart was still immersed in the Baptist faith, just as John P. Crozer was immersed in the Schuylkill River, a fourteen-year-old just beginning to believe in something greater than himself.
Another connection between the Crozer of King’s time and its foundational years was Samuel A. Crozer III, great-grandson of John P. Crozer, who served on the seminary’s board of trustees for forty years. A fellow board member shared the following anecdote about him, which cannot be confirmed but is certainly plausible:
In 1948, [Samuel Crozer] was making a routine visit to the Seminary when someone told him about an “unusual” student who had just enrolled. Sam inquired as to where the young man was staying, and after getting the information went to meet him. A few moments after knocking on the door, it was opened by a shy, husky man of about nineteen years of age. Mr. Crozer offered his hand and said, “My name is Crozer—what is yours?” The man responded, “My name is Martin Luther King.”10