Becoming King (26 page)

What then did King contribute to the Montgomery bus boycott? Perhaps most importantly, as he would say the following year, he became a symbol for the movement. He was better educated and more articulate than any of the other black pastors in the city. His winsome personality allowed him to remain above the fray. When conflicts emerged within the movement, King played the role of arbitrator and peace maker, as he did when he met with Uriah Fields following allegations of MIA financial mismanagement. He also had the capacity to connect with professionals and the poor, the highly educated and the illiterate. King became a unifying figure whose capacity for personal growth coupled with his significant social skills made him an ideal person to serve as the face of the local movement. His sense of the moment and calm demeanor under pressure as demonstrated in his Holt Street address and through his reassuring words following the bombing of his home solidified his unique role. J. Pius Barbour, King’s friend and mentor from Crozer, wrote during the boycott: “Every now and then God takes a human personality and makes that personality the Symbol of some great social movement. King has become the Symbol of the New Negro in the Negroes struggle. He is the first voice of the new negro. The new negro has had no spokesman. King is the first.” While the protest would have begun without King, and the Supreme Court would have found in their favor regardless, the local people may well have fractured without his presence. More conservative leadership might have prevailed at critical moments, leading to compromise and an end to the boycott. King’s decision not to compromise coupled with his hope-filled rhetoric held the people of Montgomery together for nearly thirteen months.
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There can be no doubt regarding the deep impact the boycott had on King. Jo Ann Robinson and E. D. Nixon had mobilized the community with the idea of a boycott and had invited King to play a critical role. Seizing upon the arrest of Parks, they created a context within which King could blossom. King gleaned from the sacrifices of maids and laborers who bore the brunt of the hardship by giving up buses for over a year. He also gained valuable experience as the president of the MIA, where he had to marshal resources, navigate through controversies and rivalries, and respond to crises with strategic thinking and skillful decision making. In addition, he learned the potentially pivotal role the media could
play in swaying the opinions of the nation, as numerous media sources covered his trial and the eventual integration of the city’s buses. King experienced the goodwill and assistance of some local whites, providing him evidence that change, redemption, and transformation of hearts was possible. He was emboldened by the intransigence of the city commissioners and their varied attempts to intimidate and dissuade both him and the MIA. Montgomery provided a unique challenge that he would have had a hard time finding elsewhere. No other local movement developed with the longevity and significance of Montgomery until the next decade. It also took a unique situation for a relative newcomer to the city to have the opportunity to be the leader of any organization, let alone a major civil rights protest. From the long view, King may have gained even more from the boycott than the community did.
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As the year came to an end, King began planning for the future of the MIA. In December 1956,
Liberation
magazine dedicated its issue to the boycott. In an article titled “We Are Still Walking,” King noted future plans for the organization following the November 13 Supreme Court ruling. He also reflected on the past thirteen months of his life in a conversation with New York attorney Stanley Levison: “if anybody had asked me a year ago to head this movement, I tell you very honestly, that I would have run a mile to get away from it. I had no intention of being involved in this way.” Once the movement began and King realized the inspiration he provided for those sacrificing for the cause, he “realized that the choice leaves your own hands. The people expect you to give them leadership. You see them growing as they move into action, and then you know you no longer have a choice, you can’t decide whether to stay in it or get out of it, you must stay in it.” For the remaining days of his life, King stayed in the fight for civil rights, but the setting was rarely Montgomery.
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In February 1957, King appeared on the cover of
Time
magazine in a story chronicling the successful conclusion of the Montgomery bus boycott. This honor reflected an unintended outcome of the local protest: King became the face for the national struggle for civil rights. He was now one of the most sought-after African American preachers in the nation, having delivered keynote addresses at the annual gatherings of both the NAACP and the National Baptist Convention the previous summer. Speaking opportunities flooded his desk. He accepted an invitation from Kwame Nkrumah to attend Ghana’s independence celebration and was in serious discussions to write his memoirs of the boycott. Although his civil rights leadership was born in Montgomery, by early 1957 King had already become bigger than Montgomery.

As King’s prominence grew, the local struggle intensified. Once the buses were integrated, a wave of violence swept Montgomery, offering a foretaste of the depths to which some would sink to preserve white supremacy and segregation. By the time the boycott ended, the African American people of Montgomery had secured a major local and national victory. They had stood together to strike a blow against Jim Crow and segregation in their city. In response, a small number of reactionaries unleashed a wave of violence. During the first ten days of bus integration, five white men assaulted a black woman at a bus stop while snipers fired shots at King’s parsonage and several city buses. Within a week, the city suspended evening bus service in an attempt to curtail the violence. A few weeks later, bombs struck two homes and four churches, demonstrating
that integrated buses did not ensure safety and justice for all Montgomery’s citizens.

King’s notoriety and leadership grew immeasurably during the boycott. The benefits of the protest did not extend to the daily lives of most of Montgomery’s African Americans, however. Many boycott leaders would face difficult and challenging days. The fragile unity that had held during the boycott soon crumbled. By the end of the decade, several of those who had been part of the vanguard of black leadership in Montgomery prior to King’s arrival had either left the city or seen their influence stifled by the clergy-directed MIA. Working-class blacks faced significant backlash as well. Many faced increased verbal abuse and frightening threats. Some lost their jobs when whites exacted an economic price on African Americans who had supported the movement. A few became victims of violent acts resulting in the destruction and loss of property, personal injury, and even the loss of life. The boycott had provided an economic boost to the local African American economy, but leaders failed to foster any sustained economic development effort. King shifted his attention to a struggle bigger than Montgomery as the local community labored to sustain the momentum generated by the boycott. The U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting integrated buses in the city proved more of a victory for King and the burgeoning national civil rights movement than it was for Montgomery’s African American community.

King’s attention turned to broader regional challenges during the first week of January 1957. Sensing an opportunity to capitalize on the momentum of Montgomery, King heeded the advice of Bayard Rustin by calling together several southern black pastors. They agreed to meet at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to contemplate a collaborative effort to bring racial change and integration throughout the South. The night before the meeting, a series of bombings rocked Montgomery, reminding King and all who gathered that some would stop at nothing to preserve segregation. King and Abernathy rushed back to Montgomery to inspect the damaged buildings and to reassure the people. Bombs struck several homes, including the parsonages of both Abernathy and Robert Graetz. Among the four church buildings that absorbed significant damage was Abernathy’s First Baptist Church. Two of the other church buildings had to be completely rebuilt.
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After inspecting the damage, King and Abernathy returned to Atlanta to resume discussions with a group of southern pastors who would form the core of what would later be called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Like any new organization, the SCLC needed money to launch its ambitious program. As the newest face of the civil rights struggle, King became their most effective fund-raiser, as he traveled around the nation sharing the Montgomery story. In spite of these responsibilities, King intended to more fully engage his pastorate at Dexter once the boycott ended. He also remained president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which sought to develop a road map that would lead to additional gains in their city. The bombings reminded King that the local struggle he had been fighting for the last thirteen months was far from over. Given the intransigence of white supremacy, moving forward in Montgomery would prove a difficult challenge.

The wave of violence alarmed Montgomery’s white citizens. A group that included
Montgomery Advertiser
editor Grover Hall, several white pastors, and the Men of Montgomery issued a statement condemning the bombings. City police responded to the outcry by arresting seven Ku Klux Klan members, several of whom later confessed to the crimes. One of the men even showed police the stock of explosives they had used, but an all-white jury later acquitted them of all charges. Despite indignant rhetoric in the wake of the violence, white Montgomery lacked the collective will to bring the perpetrators to justice.
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Once the bus boycott became a national story, Montgomery became a flashpoint for white backlash. The White Citizens Council grew exponentially, bombings of churches and parsonages became far too common, and economic reprisals were the order of the day. Following the Supreme Court ruling and the official integration of city buses in Montgomery, the backlash only intensified. Many local whites were determined that the victory garnered through the bus boycott would not be replicated. Developing a sustained local movement following the boycott would be that much more difficult because the white community would not again be guilty of underestimating the capacity of Montgomery’s African American citizens to galvanize for a cause. Their primary weapon was to terrorize blacks through consistent acts of violence.

In his Sunday sermon following the bombings, King struggled to
make sense of the violence: “Where is God while hundreds and thousands of his children suffer merely because they are desirous of having freedom and human dignity? Where is God while churches and homes of ministers are being plunged across the abyss of torturous barbarity?” The following evening at a MIA mass meeting, King further chronicled the tragic details of their shared struggle: “Several of our people have been needlessly beaten, one of our humble ladies—an expectant mother, has been viciously shot, and to climax it all two of our homes and four of our churches have been bombed.” While admitting ignorance regarding God’s ultimate purpose, he suggested that “it may be we are called upon to be God’s suffering servants through whom he is working his redemptive plan.” He encouraged those gathered to not become bitter nor turn to violence but to “continue to love” and to “keep standing up.” As King was delivering the closing prayer at the gathering, he recalled being “gripped by an emotion I could not control.” Despite being overcome, he prayed: “Lord, I hope no one will have to die as a result of our struggle for freedom here in Montgomery. Certainly I don’t want to die. But if anyone has to die, let it be me.” This open display of emotion brought King some cathartic relief while also prompting many to reach out and reassure him of their support for his leadership even as the community faced uncertain days. Many had hoped the tension would ease once integration orders came from the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, King and the community struggled to come to terms with the intransigent nature of racism.
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Following the bombings, the city briefly suspended bus service. When officials reinstated public transportation, a wave of violence once again fell upon Montgomery. Bombs struck a service station, a cab stand, and the home of an African American hospital worker. Someone also placed twelve sticks of dynamite under King’s front porch, although the makeshift bomb was discovered before it exploded. The day this new round of bombings hit, King admitted before his congregation that “I went to bed many nights scared to death” over the previous year, but he had been sustained by a vision in which God told him to “Preach the Gospel, stand up for truth, stand up for righteousness.” With divinely inspired boldness, King proclaimed: “So I’m not afraid of anybody this morning. Tell Montgomery they can keep shooting and I’m going to stand up to them; tell Montgomery they can keep bombing and I’m going to stand up to
them. If I had to die tomorrow morning I would die happy, because I’ve been to the mountain top and I’ve seen the promised land and it’s going to be here in Montgomery.” Days after being overwhelmed by emotion, King emerged with his usual message of hope and faith. He optimistically spoke of a day when his city would experience a Promised Land, but many of Montgomery’s black citizens were destined to wander in the wilderness for many more years.
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Clear direction for the Montgomery movement proved elusive. In early February, King appeared as a guest on a national NBC Sunday news program called
The Open Mind.
When asked by the moderator about future plans for the MIA, King admitted: “In Montgomery we have not worked out any next steps, that is, in any chronological order. We are certainly committed to work and press on until segregation is nonexistent in Montgomery and all over the South.” While plans were hazy on the local scene, King continued to take full advantage of opportunities to travel, speak, and promote the cause of justice both domestically and abroad. An appearance on the cover of
Time
magazine cemented King’s role as the face of not only the MIA, but also the broader civil rights struggle. Among King’s many opportunities was a request from Gold Coast prime minister Kwame Nkrumah to attend Ghana’s independence celebration. Seeking to solidify his understanding of the relationship between national and international freedom movements, King accepted the invitation. Only twenty-eight years old, King had already earned the status of foreign dignitary. A few days before departing, King preached “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” at Dexter. King told his congregation that the groundswell of freedom movements around the globe demonstrated God’s power at work, leading him to be optimistic that the local struggle for social change would prove successful.
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