Becoming King (12 page)

After the sermon, King delivered an acceptance address to his new congregation, noting, “I come to the pastorate of Dexter at a most crucial
hour of our world’s history.” The challenges of war and the anxieties of the modern industrialized world had led many to turn to the church. To be ready for those seeking direction and hope in a time of uncertainty, King prescribed an agenda of moral uplift, calling his parishioners to “lead men and women of a decadent generation to the high mountain of peace and salvation.” He also evidenced a self-effacing quality, claiming he was neither a “great preacher” nor a “profound scholar” and came with “nothing so special to offer.” Nevertheless, he closed the address with confidence: “I come with a feeling that I’ve been called to preach and to lead God’s people.” Just as Jesus had began his public ministry as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, King called upon the words of Isaiah 61 to conclude his address: “I have felt with Jesus that the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bruised.” King’s first few sermons and acceptance address reveal the Gospel he would preach at Dexter. He proclaimed an optimistic message of hope rooted in the power of God that ought to inspire people to boldly challenge injustice and tirelessly serve those in greatest need.
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King came to Montgomery during a time of social change and polarization on both the local and national scene. One day after King’s acceptance address, city police added African American officers to the force for the first time. The proposal had been considered for over a year, and the impetus for the policy came out of a political deal brokered by E. D. Nixon and Montgomery public safety commissioner Dave Birmingham prior to his 1953 election. Birmingham, whose appeal was primarily to the newer, white working-class citizens of Montgomery, recognized the need to court the black vote in his election against his old-guard opponent. Nixon agreed he would deliver the African American vote for Birmingham if the city commission candidate promised to hire black police officers. True to his word, a few weeks after the election, Birmingham brought the issue before the city commissioners for the first time.
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In December 1953, following a meeting with black leaders and Mayor Gayle, Birmingham explained the delay in securing African American officers: “We’ve been talking about the idea in Montgomery for two years, but the Grand Jury recommended the project only about six or
eight weeks ago, and of course no provision was made for it in the 1954 budget. As soon as physically and financially possible, we will entertain the idea of putting on Negro policemen in Negro districts.” Aware of the potential political ramifications of his lobbying on this issue, Birmingham also sought to ameliorate the concerns of Montgomery’s white citizens, stating, “If Negroes are added to the force they will not make arrests except in those areas to which they are specifically assigned.”
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A few months later, Mayor Gayle finally announced the city’s decision to employ four black police officers. He was quick to qualify the new policy: “I would like to emphasize that the colored policemen will be screened very carefully by the City Commission. They will be hired on a trial basis. The Negro officers will be used only in the Negro sections of Montgomery and will arrest colored people. White people will be arrested by colored police only under the most extreme, emergency circumstances.” Given the caveats offered by Mayor Gayle and Commissioner Birmingham, the only response published on the
Montgomery Advertiser
editorial page was positive. A few weeks later, the city swore in its first four black officers. In the fall of 1954, the number of African American police officers grew to seven when three black women joined the force.
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Soon after King’s acceptance address, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first
Brown v. Board of Education
decision, declaring school segregation unconstitutional. During a time when this ruling was fresh in the minds and hearts of blacks throughout the South, King commuted from Boston to Montgomery a few times a month throughout the summer as he continued to work on his dissertation. When he preached, King urged his new congregation to take courageous stands for justice, while criticizing the cowardice and hypocrisy of whites regarding issues of race. In a sermon titled “Mental and Spiritual Slavery,” King explored the biblical story of the Roman ruler Pilate, who chose to conform to the wishes of the crowd by handing Jesus over to be crucified. King compared Pilate’s silence to that of most whites in the South. It could not have escaped King, however, that his congregation included many who felt daily pressure to conform to white southern mores. They believed that their jobs, the well-being of their families, and even their lives depended on acquiescing to the status quo. King also knew that his predecessor at Dexter had consistently challenged the congregation to display greater courage
in challenging racism. While King lacked some of Johns’s rougher edges, he echoed Johns’s challenge: “Most people today are in Pilate’s shoes i.e. conformist. Most people would take stands on their ideas but they are afraid of being non-conformist.” King later added, “Take the minister choosing between truth and keeping in with their members and being popular with the brethren.” He called his parishioners to not allow their timidity to derail progress at this critical hour, noting that “the great progressive moves of history have been ruined by the perpetuity of ‘Pilateness.’” For a congregation filled with African American teachers and professors whose jobs were in the hands of white government officials, nonconformity came with a price. King let his congregation know early on that he expected them to be willing to pay the price necessary to not hold back a “great progressive move of history.”
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During his first summer at Dexter, King did not shy away from attacking segregation. He made it clear that he intended the congregation to be a socially engaged church that was not afraid to directly challenge white racism. He called into question the validity of a Christianity that includes those “who lynch Negroes,” noting the “strongest advocators of segregation in America also worship Christ.” The following week King shifted his focus to the responsibility his congregation must take in bringing substantive change to Montgomery: “Man is body as well as soul, and any religion that pretends to care for the souls of people but is not interested in the slums that damn them, the city government that corrupts them, and the economic order that cripples them, is a dry, passive do nothing religion in need of new blood.” King envisioned a socially engaged congregation that would meet challenges and obstacles head on, suggesting that “unless we preach the social gospel our evangelistic gospel will be meaningless.” As he became more comfortable with his new congregation, King would continue to lobby for community transformation as part of God’s call on the people of Dexter. Even before he took up residence in Montgomery, King was already making a contribution through powerful homilies intended to inspire his new congregation to courageously join their race’s struggle for freedom.
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In September 1954, Martin and Coretta Scott King relocated from Boston to Montgomery, setting up residence in the church’s parsonage several blocks from the church. With the move, King assumed his role as
the full-time pastor of Dexter. Meanwhile, the first school year following the
Brown
decision began. Although the Supreme Court would not issue implementation orders on their ruling until 1955, a few were determined to test the decision much sooner. At the dawn of the 1954–1955 academic year, E. D. Nixon and
Southern Farmer
editor Aubrey Williams attempted to enroll twenty-three African American children in an all-white school, filing a lawsuit on their behalf. Nixon later claimed he “was the first man anywhere in the United States to lead a group of black children into an all-white school. That was at the William Harrison School—ain’t ten minutes’ drive from here—out on the bypass. They wouldn’t let them stay, but I carried them there.” The local African American paper also credited Aubrey Williams for displaying “Christian courage and the finest sense of democratic responsibility” in his attempt to assist parents in enrolling their children in the nearest and best public schools that fall. During King’s first week in town, Williams and Nixon proved willing to take action by directly challenging Jim Crow segregation.
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In his first sermon following the move, King preached on one of his favorite subjects: love. In examining the nature of God’s love, he noted that it is “too broad to be limited to a particular race. It is too big to be wrapped in a particularlistic [sic] garment. It is too great to be encompassed by any single nation. God is a universal God. This fact has been a ray of hope and has given a sense of belonging to hundreds of disinherited people.” To display the encouragement that God’s love can bring, King cited “the illustration of the old slave preacher,” a story found in a tape-recorded version of this sermon years later: “This is what the old slave preacher used to say. He didn’t have his grammar right but he knew God, and he would stand before the people caught in the dark night of slavery with nothing to look forward to the next morning but the long row of cotton ahead, the sizzling heat, and the rawhide whip of the overseer. He would stand up before them after they had worked from camp to cane. He said now, ‘You ain’t no slave. You ain’t no nigger. But you’re God’s child.’” Following this illustration, King told his Dexter congregation, “All of the hate in the world cannot destroy the universal effect of God’s love.” In the face of the absurd hatred and exclusion blacks experienced every day in Montgomery, King pointed to the power of God’s love as the source of sanity and dignity for “God’s love is redemptive.” King’s
enduring faith in the transforming and redemptive possibilities of love proved to be an unwavering conviction of his public ministry.
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A few days after moving to Montgomery, King attended the National Baptist Convention in St. Louis, where he delivered an address before the women’s auxiliary. Despite the unsuccessful effort to integrate Montgomery’s public schools, King offered an optimistic speech trumpeting the inevitability of racial progress, desegregation, and social change: “Ultimately history brings into being the new order to blot out the tragic reign of the old order.” During his first year at Dexter, King continued to believe that “the tide has turned” and “segregation is passing away.” On the ground in Montgomery, however, dissatisfaction with the degrading effects of segregation grew. Whether inspired by optimism in the wake of the
Brown
decision or simply fed up with the racial status quo, several people in the city were ready to stand up and be counted in the fight for true freedom.
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At the front of the line, as had been the case for several decades, was E. D. Nixon. In addition to his attempt to register black students in white schools, he also became the first African American since the beginning of the twentieth century to run for public office in a Montgomery County Democratic primary. Although he lost the race, he continued to set a bold example for blacks by challenging any so-called restrictions imposed by white society. During the summer of 1954, Nixon was named the chairperson of a voter registration effort for the 2nd Congressional District in Alabama. In his remarks at the organization’s meeting, Nixon vowed to “lead the fight to open the way for Negro voting.” In homage to Nixon’s efforts in 1954, the “colored section” of the
Montgomery Advertiser
named him Montgomery’s “Man of the Year.”
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Despite Nixon’s activism, most African American men avoided overt challenges to Montgomery’s racist laws and mores. As a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters whose job was not tied to the local community, Nixon was less vulnerable to economic retribution by local whites. Those whose service jobs depended on the goodwill of local white businessmen could not afford to share Nixon’s boldness. According to Jo Ann Robinson, many black men stopped riding the city buses during this period, fearing the abuse and humiliation they so often received from bus drivers. They also were tired of feeling powerless while drivers disrespected
and mistreated African American women. According to Robinson, “at no time did a single man ever stand up in defense of the women.” Men were more vulnerable to economic and physical reprisals if they stepped out of their place, as often families depended on income from their jobs to make ends meet. Any overt protest, if discovered, could easily lead to the loss of a job, a price that was simply too high for most to pay. So, “if they were on the bus when trouble started, they merely got up and got off.” Confronted with perpetual repression, many working-class black males chose to avoid confrontations altogether.
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King never had to ride the buses in Montgomery. Although he undoubtedly heard about the community’s concerns over the bus situation, his earliest impressions of the city were from a broader perspective. He noticed the heavy influence of the Maxwell and Gunter Air Force bases, which employed roughly 7 percent of the city’s workforce and, according to chamber of commerce reports, pumped over $50 million into the city’s economy each year. King could not help but notice that while these bases had such a significant economic impact on the region, they operated under different social rules than the city did: “the bases, which contributed so much to the economic life of the community, were fully integrated,” but “the city around them adhered to a rigorous pattern of racial segregation.” King also encountered a divided black community, particularly among the leadership. He became aware of the many subgroups, programs, organizations, and competing personalities that stifled any significant efforts to bring about change. King admired the individual leaders but surmised, “While the heads of each of these organizations were able and dedicated leaders with common aims, their separate allegiances made it difficult for them to come together on the basis of a higher unity.”
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