Becoming King (36 page)

^27.
Rice, interview by Lumpkin; Underwood, interview by Lumpkin; Gray, Leventhal, Sikora, and Thornton,
The Children Coming On,
133.

^28.
King Jr., “Propagandizing Christianity,” September 12, 1954, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 184–87.

^29.
King Jr., “New Wine in New Bottles,” October 17, 1954, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 192–94.

^30.
The glowing memories of King before the boycott by Nixon, Carr, and other Montgomery residents may not have been as pronounced at the
time. Although King undoubtedly impressed them, they would always view King through the lens of his civil rights leadership, coloring their earliest recollections. Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch meeting, January 9, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc). Nixon, interview by Lumpkin. In this interview, Nixon claimed he heard King speak on the second Sunday in August 1955. While King was unanimously elected to the branch’s executive committee at that meeting, there is no indication in the very thorough minutes of the event that King offered any remarks, suggesting Nixon was recalling his response to this January speech (Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, August 14, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers, [NN-Sc]). Johnnie Carr, interview by Steven M. Millner, July 17, 1977, in Garrow, ed.
The Walking City,
529. Carr also claims she first heard King in August 1955, but credits the Dexter deacon R. D. Nesbitt with introducing King. In this January meeting, however, King was introduced by Ralph Abernathy. Carr may have remembered King’s June address to the NAACP, when he was introduced by Nesbitt (Rosa Parks, minutes, mass meeting at First CME Church, June 19, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers [NN-Sc]).

^31.
Montgomery Advertiser,
January 12, 1955.

^32.
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, “Social and Political Action Committee Digest, Number 2,” January 1955, Folder 15, Box 77, King Papers, Boston University; King Jr.,
Stride toward Freedom,
34–35.

^33.
Alabama Tribune,
January 28, 1955.

^34.
Virginia Durr to Corliss Lamont, February 9, 1955, in Sullivan, ed.,
Freedom Writer,
81.

^35.
“Negroes’ Most Urgent Needs,” LPR 127, Baskin Papers.

^36.
Thornton,
Dividing Lines,
49.

^37.
The
Montgomery Advertiser
city editor Joe Azbell devoted a significant portion of his March 1, 1955, editorial to the housing dilemma faced by the city’s African American residents. Noting that some believed “the Negro housing situation will become so critical this year some move will have to be started to open new subdivisions,” Azbell referenced James Holt, the president of the First Federal Savings and Loan Association, who called the housing crisis for blacks in Montgomery the largest housing problem the city faced.” The editor suggested no possible solutions to the problem (Joe Azbell, “City Limits,”
Montgomery Advertiser,
March 1, 1955).
Montgomery Advertiser,
March 20, 1955; J. Mills Thornton, “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956,” in Garrow, ed.,
The Walking City,
336. Thornton examines the demographic and political shifts that occurred in Montgomery in the 1950s. He notes that the “Demographic
exploitation of racial tensions promised to counter Birmingham’s exploitation of class tensions and thus to capture support in the eastern wards” where many working-class whites were moving in (335–36). Parks, an ally of Birmingham, defeated the incumbent Cleere, while Gayle returned as mayor. Thornton adds: “The lesson of Parks’s victory appeared to be that, given the new social realities produced by the city’s rapid postwar growth, an East Montgomerian would always defeat a South Montgomerian when the issues remained class oriented. The lesson of Sellers’s victory appeared to be that a vigorous exploitation of racial antipathies could give a South Montgomerian at least a fighting chance of defeating an East Montgomerian. Gayle was, of course, a South Montgomerian. But Gayle’s dilemma was much more complicated than this analysis would imply. First, he was unlikely to abandon a set of beliefs that he had held sincerely for many decades merely because political strategy seemed to dictate this course. Second, developments within the business community rendered it less than certain that a sound strategy actually dictated this course” (337–38).

^38.
West, interview by Lee; Virginia Durr to Jessica Mitford, March 1955, in Sullivan, ed.,
Freedom Writer,
84–85. See also Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, March 22, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc).

^39.
Virginia Durr to Jessica Mitford, March 1955, April 8, 1955, May 5, 1955, and May 6, 1955, in Sullivan, ed.,
Freedom Writer,
84–87. At an NAACP meeting in July, the attorney Fred Gray indicated he “paid 47.50 for the Claudette Colvin case transcript. Since the violation of the segregation of transportation law charge was dismissed against her, the NAACP has no case but to have her exonerated of the assault and battery charge.” Noting Colvin was on probation and a ward of the state, Gray informed the executive committee that he had filed a motion for a new trial, hoping she would be exonerated due to false arrest. The branch agreed to appeal the Colvin case on these grounds (Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, July 13, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers [NN-Sc]).

^40.
Abernathy, “The Natural History of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed.,
The Walking City,
109–10.

^41.
King Jr., “Other Mountains,” May 15, 1955, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 214. See also Trenholm to King, May 2, 1955, ibid., 2: 556–57.

^42.
Rosa Parks, minutes, mass meeting at First CME Church, June 19, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc); King, “The Peril of Superficial Optimism in the Area of Race Relations,” June 19, 1955, in
Papers of Martin
Luther King,
Jr., 6: 214–15; King Jr., “Discerning the Signs of History,” June 26, 1955, ibid., 6: 216–19.

^43.
King Jr., “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,” July 24, 1955, Folder 101, Sermon File.

^44.
Graetz,
A White Preacher’s Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott
(Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1998), 35–37.

^45.
Ibid., 50.

^46.
Juliette Morgan to William A. Gayle, July 13, 1955, Box 4, Morgan Papers.

^47.
Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, July 13, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc). Founded in 1932, the Highlander Folk School served as a critical southern training center for labor and civil rights activists.

^48.
Rosa Parks to Mrs. Henry F. Shepherd, July 6, 1955, Mss 265, Folder 22, Box 22, Highlander Research and Education Center; Parks, with Haskins,
Rosa Parks: My Story,
102–7.

^49.
Rosa Parks, minutes, Montgomery branch executive committee meeting, August 14, 1955, Montgomery NAACP Papers (NN-Sc).

^50.
Virginia Durr to Jessica Mitford, May 6, 1955, in Sullivan, ed.,
Freedom Writer,
87–88; Yeakey, “The Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott, 1955–56,” 9–13, 16–18.

^51.
Yeakey, “The Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott, 1955–1956,” 22–23. Lamont Yeakey, in his dissertation on the bus boycott, claims that Montgomery’s black clubs and social organizations “crisscrossed class, geographic, and occupational lines.” His only support for this assertion is based on an anecdote of a time when a club reached out to help a poor family who had lost their home to a fire when they heard about the family’s plight. While such charitable contributions did provide some connection between the classes, they were predicated on a paternalistic model of racial uplift. For the most part, the clubs and social circles reinforced rather than broke down class distinctions (ibid., 50–53).

^52.
King Jr., “Worship,” August 7, 1955, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 222–25. In
Stride toward Freedom,
King used similar language to describe his earliest impressions of Dexter: “I was anxious to change the impression in the community that Dexter was a sort of silk-stocking church catering only to a certain class. Often it was referred to as the ‘big folks church.’ Revolting against this idea, I was convinced that worship at its best is a social experience with people of all levels of life coming together to realize their oneness and unity under God. Whenever the church, consciously or unconsciously, caters to one class it loses the spiritual force of the ‘whosoever
will, let them come’ doctrine, and is in danger of becoming little more than a social club with a thin veneer of religiosity” (25).

^53.
King Jr., “Looking Beyond Your Circumstances,” September 18, 1955, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 225–30.

^54.
For more on the death of Emmett Till and its significance, see Whit-field,
A Death in the Delta.
King, “Pride versus Humility,” September 25, 1955, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 230–34.

^55.
King Jr., “The Impassable Gulf (The Parable of Dives and Lazarus),” October 2, 1955, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 235–39. In developing this sermon, King relied on George Buttrick’s insights on the parable (see Buttrick,
The Parables of Jesus,
87–91).

^56.
J. Mills Thornton III, “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956,” in Garrow, ed.,
The Walking City,
338–39.

^57.
“Annual of the Alabama Baptist State Convention, 1955,” “Special Session,” September 15, 1955; “Regular Session,” November 15, 16, 17, 1955, Birmingham, Ala., p. 125, LPR 135, Folder 7, Box 7, Alabama State Archives.

^58.
Alabama Council on Human Relations newsletter, no. 4 (October 1955), Folder 5, Box 4, Baskin Papers.

^59.
King Jr., “The One-Sided Approach of the Good Samaritan,” November 20, 1955, in
Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
6: 239–40.

^60.
Largely unaware of the content of many of King’s early Dexter sermons, Richard Lischer erroneously concluded: “During the summer and fall of 1955 Pastor King reverted to a more philosophical style of preaching. He delivered well-rounded statements on the meaning of life, such as ‘Discerning the Signs of History,’ ‘The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,’ and ‘The One-Sided Approach of the Good Samaritan.’ During the first year he rarely attacked the problem of racism in Montgomery, though he did encourage and finally require NAACP membership and voter registration. When the bus crisis broke in December of that year, he suddenly found a focus and a climax for his sermons. The abstractions give way to the demands of the struggle. The sign of history par excellence is liberation. The evil that must die upon the seashore is segregation. The Good Samaritan now teaches not merely love but a dangerous love between the races. Everything has changed.” He also mistakenly concludes that “In King’s early speeches, the viciousness of racism is minimized” (Lischer,
The Preacher King,
83–84, 87). King later described his first eighteen months in Montgomery as a time when “there was a ground swell of discontent. Such men as Vernon Johns and E. D. Nixon had never tired of keeping the problem before the conscience of the community. When others had feared to speak, they had spoken with courage. When others
had dared not take a stand, they had stood with valor and determination.” He later added: “through the work of men like Johns and Nixon there had developed beneath the surface a slow fire of discontent, fed by the continuing indignities and inequities to which the Negroes were subjected. These were fearless men who created the atmosphere for the social revolution that was slowly developing in the Cradle of the Confederacy. But this discontent was still latent in 1954” (King Jr.,
Stride toward Freedom,
38–39).

^1.
Gray, Leventhal, Sikora, and Thornton,
The Children Coming On,
13.

^2.
Jo Ann Robinson, leaflet,
Another Negro woman has been arrested,
December 2, 1955, Montgomery County District Attorney’s Files.

^3.
Gray,
Bus Ride to Justice,
52. Steven M. Millner also stresses this point: “Nixon, and his political allies, Robinson and Burks, continued to move rapidly because they sensed they had to outflank the generally conservative local black clergy” (Millner, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A Case Study in the Emergence of a Social Movement,” in Garrow, ed.,
The Walking City,
452). Garrow, ed.,
The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It,
53. Regarding Robinson’s critical role in the genesis of the boycott, her fellow WPC member Mary Fair Burks reflected: “nobody worked more diligently than she did as a member of the board of the Montgomery Improvement Association and as a representative of the Women’s Political Council. Although others had contemplated a boycott, it was due in large part to Jo Ann’s unswerving belief that it
could
be accomplished, and her never-failing optimism that it
would
be accomplished, and her selflessness and unbounded energy that it
was
accomplished” (Crawford, Rouse, and Woods, eds.,
Women in the Civil Rights Movement,
75). Rosa Parks, J. E. Pierce, Robert Graetz, “Montgomery Story,” August 21, 1956, Highlander Folk School Papers.

^4.
Southern Exposure
9, no. 1 (Spring 1981): 14. According to David Garrow, Abernathy called King before Nixon’s second call, and persuaded King to support the boycott (Garrow,
Bearing the Cross,
18). Ibid., 53.