Becoming King (3 page)

Thus, the decision to elect King to head the MIA was unexpected, but the qualities of mind that King demonstrated in his early ministry
were well suited to the role of being the principal spokesperson of the boycott movement. His subsequent decade of civil rights leadership was, in some respects, a departure from his original social gospel mission, but only to the extent that he necessarily narrowed his focus to the southern issues of segregation and racial barriers to voting. Seen from the perspective of his entire ministry, the years from Montgomery to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were a time during which he felt compelled to play down the radicalism of his social gospel Christianity. To be sure, during his entire public life, he would often describe the African American freedom struggle in the context of African and Asian anticolonial struggles, and he would often draw attention to the issue of international peace. But only toward the end of this decade of civil rights reform did these broader concerns become a central part of his message, as it was in his rarely heard Nobel lecture following his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1964. Only after the Voting Rights bill had been enacted did King make clear that even this landmark reform did not fulfill his dream. Only then would he return to his social gospel mission of achieving economic justice, bringing his ministry to Chicago and then Memphis as part of the Poor People’s Campaign. Only then, to the consternation of those who saw him merely as a civil rights leader, would he speak out unambiguously against war, imperialism, and militarism.

It is worthwhile to speculate regarding what would have happened to King if he had not accepted the call to Dexter or if he had not been selected to head the MIA. If not for Rosa Parks, he might not have become the preeminent African American of his era or a Nobel laureate or have his birth commemorated with a national holiday. It is also likely that, if not for King’s role in the Montgomery bus boycott, the contributions of grassroots activists in Montgomery and other protest centers would be remembered differently. Jackson suggests, moreover, that King’s oratorical brilliance may have fostered his rise to international prominence while also diminishing his ability to sustain a mass movement. Not until the Birmingham campaign of 1963 would King experience a similar degree of success in mobilizing an entire black community. By acknowledging that the bus boycott had only a limited impact on the lives of Montgomery’s black working class,
Becoming King
is a necessary corrective to romanticized versions of civil rights progress and Great Man historical myths.
Yet Jackson also reminds us that historic social movements provide opportunities for some men and women of all classes and backgrounds to rise unexpectedly to greatness.

Having acknowledged the importance of contingency in King’s emergence as a leader, he demonstrates that King’s prophetic vision encouraged others to see their resistance to injustice as more historically significant than would otherwise have been the case. Because of King, the African American freedom struggle gained a historical significance it would otherwise have lacked. The Montgomery bus boycott would have happened without King, but King’s oratory helped to ensure that the boycott became one of those exceptional local movements for justice that would send ripples of inspiration to oppressed people elsewhere.

Clayborne Carson

^1.
King, “Conquering Self-Centeredness,” August 11, 1957.

^2.
Birth of a New Age, December 1955–December 1956,
ed. Clayborne Carson, Stewart Burns, Susan Carson, Peter Holloran, and Dana L. H. Powell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997).

^3.
Ed. Clayborne Carson, Susan Carson, Susan Englander, Troy Jackson, and Gerald L. Smith (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007).

^4.
King, “Preaching Ministry” [September 14–November 24, 1948], in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 72.

^5.
Clayborne Carson, ed.,
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
(New York: Warner Books, 1998), 5.

^6.
Ibid., 16.

^7.
Quote in introduction to
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
vol. 1,
Called to Serve, January 1929–June 1951,
ed. Clayborne Carson, Ralph E. Luker, and Penny A. Russell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 33–34.

^8.
King, “How Modern Christians Should Think of Man,” November 29, 1949–February 15, 1950, in
Papers,
1: 274.

^9.
Carson, ed.,
Autobiography,
15.

^10.
King, “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman,” April 15, 1955, in
Papers,
2: 512.

^11.
King, “The False God of Nationalism,” July 12, 1953, in
Papers,
6: 132.

^12.
King, “First Things First,” August 2, 1953, in
Papers,
6: 144–45.

^13.
King, “Communism’s Challenge to Christianity,” August 9, 1953, in
Papers,
6: 148–49.

^14.
King, “The Peril of Superficial Optimism in the Area of Race Relations,” June 19, 1955, in
Papers,
6: 215.

Every year in elementary school classrooms throughout the United States, teachers share heroic stories that took place in Montgomery, Alabama, during the 1950s. Young children learn about the arrest of Rosa Parks, the boycott of Montgomery city buses, and the emergence of a young Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. One doesn’t have to be a historian to know the significant role the Montgomery movement played in the emergence of a broader civil rights struggle during the 1950s and 1960s. Although historians have written countless books covering the life and career of Martin Luther King, while others have contributed dozens of studies that cover aspects of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, a narrative recounting the important influence of this community on King’s career and civil rights leadership has yet to be written.
¹

Brave white and black activists of Montgomery had a significant impact on King’s leadership. Not only did a handful of courageous men and women in Montgomery spearhead a protest movement; they also nurtured, influenced, and helped launch King’s public ministry. A closer examination of the Montgomery movement reveals how a young English professor at Alabama State University (Jo Ann Robinson) and a middle-aged Pullman porter (E. D. Nixon) played a larger role in King’s civil rights leadership than a white theologian like Reinhold Niebuhr or a global leader like Mahatma Gandhi. This book demonstrates how Montgomery and her people provided the true birthplace of Martin Luther King’s civil rights leadership.
²

In an essay published over a decade ago, Charles Payne argued that the story of the Montgomery movement needed to be retold. Contrary to the top-down, King-centered narrative of the boycott, Payne suggested that “Montgomery was largely a willed phenomenon, a history made by everyday people who were willing to do their spadework, not one shaped entirely by impersonal social forces or great individual leadership.” Asserting that many studies were “more theatrical than instructive,” he charged that “the popular conception of Montgomery—a tired woman refused to give up her seat and a prophet rose up to lead the grateful masses—is a good story but useless history.” This book attempts to be both a good story and useful history by emphasizing the contributions of many men and women, black and white, to Montgomery’s local struggle.
³

A more in-depth analysis of Montgomery in the 1950s demands a significant examination of the very real class differences in the African American community. Most local black leaders prior to the boycott believed the masses were passive and unwilling to get involved in any significant effort to bring change to their city. The rapid and nearly unanimous response by the working class to the call for a bus boycott contradicts this assessment. In reality, most blacks who organized to dismantle segregation were professionals who did not really know much about the daily lives or the thoughts of their town’s working-class blacks. By contrast, E. D. Nixon was a local leader who knew the so-called “black masses” in his city. Nixon worked for decades to improve the conditions facing African American laborers in Montgomery. He coupled a passion for overcoming segregation with a zeal for economic justice. He was not simply seeking an end to racial discrimination; he also sought justice in the courtrooms and economic opportunities that would extend to all of the black community.

Conditions on city buses galvanized African American leaders and professionals along with the working class, resulting in an incredibly effective thirteen-month protest. Black professionals were ready to organize in an effort to win an ideological battle against white supremacy by insisting whites treat their race with dignity. Working-class people who actually rode the buses each day were tired of the abuse and mistreatment they experienced directly. The people were ready to act, and their protest captured the attention of the nation and the world. A year later, they celebrated the end of segregated buses in Montgomery.

Most studies of Montgomery and the broader civil rights movement tend to leave the city’s struggle behind after the conclusion of the boycott and the launching of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Even works that take very seriously the contributions of many local men and women years before the boycott do not explore what happened in the city between 1957 and the end of the decade. This book, however, examines the lack of a sustained movement and the absence of economic gains after the dawn of integrated buses. Although King gained a great deal from his experiences in Montgomery, the city itself remained segregated and racially repressive long after King returned to Atlanta. King friend and Alabama State College professor Lawrence Reddick claimed a year after the boycott that the true test of success for Montgomery was not “found in what it has done for the Negro community in this city” but rather through its “positive national and international effect.” The Montgomery movement provided a stepping-stone for a growing national civil rights movement, but its sustained local impact on the daily lives of black citizens from all socioeconomic classes was minimal.
⁴

King’s role, influence, and development remain an important part of the Montgomery story and the broader civil rights movement. While many more studies of local struggles are essential, there is also a need for the leaders and institutions of the movement to be understood through the lens of local communities. Glenn Eskew, in his work on the freedom struggle in Birmingham, includes a reexamination of King from the perspective of the people who participated in perhaps the most significant campaign of the era. In this book, instead of viewing Montgomery through the lens of King’s leadership, his leadership is explored through the lens of the civil rights struggle in Montgomery. Such an approach underscores King’s ability to connect with the educated and the unlettered, professionals and the working class. This also allows for a sharper critique of the shortcomings of King’s leadership following the bus protest, limitations he would not address until the last few years of his life. As the boycott came to an end, King’s inner circle began to be dominated by clergy and a few college professors who turned their focus to voter registration efforts and better recreation facilities. E. D. Nixon’s concern for sustained economic development and job creation was left behind, as was the original boycott demand for black bus drivers. Although King maintained
an ability to listen to and speak the language of the working class, following the boycott his approach to the freedom struggle was defined more by professionals and clergy than by working-class activists.
⁵

By examining King’s activities after the boycott through the lens of Montgomery, one sees how he slowly disengaged from the local struggle. While maintaining symbolic leadership as the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, King’s energies drifted more and more to the broader regional struggle. Elevated to national prominence by the success of the boycott, King used his impressive resume, oratorical gifts, and tactical skills to contribute to other local movements. He would never again be as intimately connected to local activists as he was in Montgomery. His elevated status led to criticisms of his leadership, with members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee referring to King derisively as “de Lawd” by 1962. Five years earlier, King had already begun to disengage from the only local movement to which he had a true grassroots connection. The strong pull of the regional and national platform eclipsed his efforts in Montgomery, where due to white intransigence and violence as well as reemerging divisions within the black community, moving forward proved tedious and tiring. By understanding the more complete story of Montgomery, one gains a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of King’s civil rights leadership.
⁶

The local movement also demonstrates the indispensable contributions of women in the struggle for civil rights. Many early histories of the civil rights era emphasized the significance of male leaders while failing to recognize the efforts of female leaders. Jo Ann Robinson’s memoir on the Montgomery movement helped correct this omission.
Women in the Civil Rights Movement,
a volume of essays published in the early 1990s, furthered the effort to emphasize the critical contributions of women like Robinson, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary Fair Burks, and Ella Baker. A close look at Montgomery from 1948 to 1960 continues this important effort by demonstrating not only the significance of white and black women to the local struggle, but also the influence they had on King’s development.
⁷