Becoming King (16 page)

The Southern Baptists in Alabama were aware of the challenges facing the South but were unwilling to take a clear stand on any of the big issues, including school desegregation, White Citizens Councils, or even the verdict in the Emmett Till trial. Such passivity by Christians in the South must have become more and more obvious to King the longer he lived in Montgomery.
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Meanwhile, the White Citizens Council sought to establish itself in the city. Roughly 450 people showed up for an October 3 organizational meeting at city hall. Temporary chairperson Luther Ingalls attempted to rally those gathered by shouting: “The house is on fire. We’ve got to wake up!” Alabama state senator Sam Englehardt offered an address in which he accused the NAACP of having ties to the Communist Party. In their analysis of the event, the Alabama Council of Human Relations newsletter seized on an editorial printed in the
Montgomery Advertiser
that noted that because they failed to attract any “face cards”—that is, no significant Montgomery leaders “were within a mile of the meeting”—the event was “harmless.” While the first meeting was not particularly well attended, the WCC would grow in strength over the next several months.
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In the face of the alarming passivity of some and the blatant racism of others, King’s concern for radical structural change continued to influence his preaching as 1955 drew to a close. In a very unorthodox interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, King questioned the longterm
effectiveness of the story’s protagonist: “He was concerned merely with temporary relief, not with thorough reconstruction. He sought to sooth the effects of evil, without going back to uproot the causes.” King had come to realize that many southern whites were in the same boat. They might privately question the Till verdict, keep their distance when the White Citizens Council came to town, and offer assistance to a destitute African American that crossed their paths, but they were unwilling to challenge the dehumanizing system known as their “way of life.” King concluded his sermon by calling his congregation to couple the compassion of the Good Samaritan with a willingness “to tear down unjust conditions and build anew instead of just patching things up.” Within a few weeks, King would have the opportunity to make a major contribution in collaboration with others seeking significant structural change in Montgomery.
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As 1955 drew to a close, King found himself in the midst of the struggle for civil rights in the heart of the South. The doctrine of white supremacy cast a pall over the entire city of Montgomery. Although a handful spoke against the system, the vast majority of whites either wholeheartedly endorsed segregation or tacitly sanctioned its existence. Despite the apparent intransigence of Jim Crow segregation, some African Americans in Montgomery were challenging the status quo. They demanded meetings with city commissioners, held a political forum for local political candidates, attempted to integrate city schools, and rallied around the arrest of teenager Claudette Colvin when she refused to give up her seat on a city bus. Still, Montgomery’s black community was divided. Although conflicts among some leaders explained part of the problem, the day-to-day gulf between professionals and the working class proved more debilitating.

A resident of Alabama for fewer than eighteen months, King was not yet at the forefront of community activists. He did provide a new type of leader on the local scene, however. He combined the education and pedigree of the most accomplished black professionals in the city with a heart for connecting with working-class people. He also articulated a powerful message of hope that inspired people to radical love and bold labor with the confidence that segregation would soon pass away. King’s sermons during 1954–1955 reveal that challenging racism’s various manifestations
became a regular feature of his preaching and psyche. As he encountered Robert Hughes, Juliette Morgan, Aubrey Williams, and Virginia Durr, he was encouraged by the willingness of some whites to join the struggle for justice. Through the courageous and tireless efforts of Jo Ann Robinson, E. D. Nixon, Mary Fair Burks, Rufus Lewis, and Rosa Parks, he saw examples of people making contributions toward the effort to end discrimination and segregation. Inspired by their lives, King was ready to join the front lines of the battle himself.
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Rosa Parks would not be moved. It was Thursday afternoon, and she had just completed a long day’s work as a seamstress in a downtown department store. When she boarded the bus, Parks located a seat in the first row of the African American section, only to be ordered to move a few minutes later to accommodate a boarding white passenger. As Parks continued to sit, the bus driver got the police involved, who placed her under arrest. Word soon spread around town, and a few were ready to act. They had waited for the day when the city’s bus laws could finally be challenged in court. E. D. Nixon later remembered: “I have told the press time after time that we were doing these things for years before December 1955, but all they want to do is start at December 1 and forget about what happened. They say that Mrs. Parks is the lady that sat down on the bus and then they want to start talking about what happened December 5. But that leaves a whole lot of folks out and ignores a lot of what was done over a long period of time to set the stage.” Those who had “set the stage” in Montgomery did not waste any time seizing the moment. Clifford and Virginia Durr joined Nixon in bailing Parks out of jail. They then went to her apartment, where they talked with Parks and her husband at length about the possibility of making her arrest a constitutional test case of bus segregation. She agreed to move forward legally should she be found guilty in court the following Monday.
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After a little more than a year in Montgomery, Parks’s arrest thrust
King into the front lines of a local movement for civil rights. His theological discussions of evil would become much more than rhetoric bolstered by occasional reminders of the ugliness of racism in the segregated South. He would experience a daily battle, facing weapons as varied as the spoken word, letters, phone calls, and even bombs. Pushed into the role of spokesperson for the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), King flourished, galvanizing the African American community with his inspired Holt Street address. Behind the scenes, King continued to lean upon and learn from the people of Montgomery, who were the backbone of the movement. Without the organizational efforts, commitment, and examples of Nixon, Jo Ann Robinson, and Mary Fair Burks, coupled with the daily sacrifices of the people, the bus boycott would have never happened and King might well have settled into a reflective and secure career, never personally engaging the battle himself. Because the people of Montgomery were willing to walk, King had the opportunity to lead.

Jo Ann Robinson was better prepared for this moment than King. When she heard of Parks’s arrest, she went right to work, laboring through the night mimeographing thousands of fliers describing a one-day bus boycott on Monday, December 5. Her statement explained that another African American had been arrested for not yielding her seat to a white person. Noting that it was the second such arrest since the Claudette Colvin case that spring, Robinson charged: “Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourth of riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats.” In an attempt to personalize the situation, she continued, “The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother.” The note encouraged “every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday.” Her task was urgent if she was to circumvent any conservative impulses on the part of Montgomery’s African American ministers, many of whom tended to be reticent to take such bold steps.
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Attorney Fred Gray remembered the cautious attitude embodied by many of the local clergy: “Initially, the Women’s Political Council (led by Mary Fair Burks and Jo Ann Robinson), E. D. Nixon, and Rufus Lewis were more interested in the Protest than were the ministers.” According
to Robinson, the town’s clergy supported the proposed boycott only after realizing that many of their parishioners were already backing the protest: “One minister read the circular, inquired about the announcements, and found that all the city’s black congregations were quite intelligent on the matter and were planning to support the one-day boycott with or without their ministers’ leadership. It was then that the ministers decided that it was time for them, the leaders, to catch up with the masses.” To ensure the masses were aware of the planned protest as soon as possible, Robinson mobilized the WPC on Friday morning to spread the word. Some, like fellow Dexter Avenue member and Alabama State professor J. E. Pierce, were not initially supportive. He did not believe the people would actually support even a one-day boycott. Others were more receptive, however, including Nixon.
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At first, King was reluctant to join the proposed bus protest. When Nixon called early Friday morning asking for his involvement and support, King was hesitant. Nixon later recalled: “The third person I called was Martin Luther King. He said, ‘Brother Nixon, let me think about it awhile and call me back,’ and I called him back. He said, ‘Yeah, Brother Nixon, I decided, I’m going to go along with you.’ And I said, ‘That’s fine, because I called 18 other people and I told them they’re going to meet at your church this evening.’” Meanwhile Robinson and a few of her students had left the anonymous boycott notices at a local church where a clergy meeting was scheduled for that morning. Soon nearly every pastor in Montgomery knew of the proposed boycott, and they joined other community leaders at Dexter that evening.
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When she returned to the Alabama State College campus, Robinson discovered that the college president, H. Councill Trenholm, wanted to see her immediately. Trenholm confronted Robinson regarding her role in making the 52,500 leaflets that were distributed. Fearing she might be fired, Robinson explained the conditions that had led to the proposed boycott and the significant role of the WPC in bringing these injustices to light. Trenholm’s response was more positive than she expected: “Your group must continue to press on for civil rights.” The president did require her to reimburse the school for the mimeographed copies she had made and let her know that her role in the protests must be behind the scenes, not involving the school directly. Assured that her job was safe at
least for the time being, Robinson headed to Dexter that evening for the proposed organizational meeting.
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The gathering at Dexter proved contentious. Since Nixon had left town early Friday to fulfill work commitments, Reverend L. Roy Bennett, the president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, presided at the meeting. According to King, Bennett attempted to stymie debate by eliminating any group participation or discussion and instead charged ahead with concrete plans for the upcoming boycott. After nearly an hour of filibustering, Bennett agreed to open up the floor for questions and discussion. The majority voted to proceed with the one-day boycott and began working on an ad hoc transportation system to be put in place on Monday to help African Americans get around town without using the buses. They also revised Robinson’s original statement, removing a reference to Claudette Colvin and adding information about a mass meeting to be held on Monday evening at Holt Street Baptist Church. King and Abernathy used Dexter’s mimeograph machine to again produce thousands of leaflets for distribution throughout the city. While working, they discussed the leadership needs the hour demanded. According to Abernathy, King was wary of Bennett, believing he would elevate the clergy into strategic positions at the expense of the people whom they were asking to make the real sacrifice by not riding city buses.
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On Saturday, ministers and other community leaders worked to distribute the leaflets. Mary Fair Burks and Jo Ann Robinson ran into their share of challenges: “Despite our early start, progress was slow. Often we not only had to take time to explain the leaflet, but also first to read it to those unable to do so.” This experience interacting with the city’s poorer citizens proved an eye-opening experience for Burks, who taught at Alabama State College, as boycott communication efforts forced her out of her middle-class world: “It was my first encounter with masses of the truly poor and disenfranchised. I remember thinking that not even a successful boycott would solve the problems of poverty and illiteracy which I saw that day.” Burks was not alone in her observations. Many pastors also encountered the challenging living conditions faced by many of Montgomery’s African American residents for the very first time. Edgar French, the pastor of Hillard Chapel AME Zion, noted: “Although there was not time for pastoral visits, ministers had been closer to the realities of
living in slum areas than ever before. They had really been among poorly-clad and undernourished children, alcoholics, and many other forms of human deprivation they hardly realized existed. The stark evils of social and economic injustices experienced in those few hours made it easy for many of the ministers to discard their well-prepared manuscripts at the Sunday worship hour, and to speak concerning the evils of their day.” The task of communicating about the planned boycott proved to be as galvanizing for Montgomery’s African American community as Parks’s arrest had been.
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