Tennessee State University Digital Scholarship @ Tennessee State University
Nashville Conference on African American History and Culture Tennessee African-American History
2018
Remembering the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr (January 15, 1929-April 4 ,1968)
Linda T. Wynn
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Recommended Citation Wynn, Linda T., "Remembering the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr (January 15, 1929-April 4 ,1968)" (2018). Nashville Conference on African American History and Culture. 22. https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/conference-on-african-american-history-and-culture/22
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Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. ~ Coretta Scott King
On April 4, 2018, the nation will pause to remember the New England Conservatory of Music. ln 1954 he accepted life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, the pastorate of Dexter A venue Baptist Church 111 Jr., one of the most charismatic leaders of the modern Montgomery, Ala., a year before receiving his Ph.D. in Civil Rights Movement. A staunch advocate for the rights Systematic Theology. of African Americans, he used nonviolence and civil di sobedi ence to bring the ri ghts to fruition. ' Although he In December 1955, African American leaders formed the and hi s followers practiced nonviolence, it was violence Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to protest that silenced his voice. King may be America's most the arrest of NAACP secretary Rosa Parks for refusing to honored political fi gure, commemorated ·. in statues, render her bus seat to a white man. The MIA selected Dr. celebrations, and street names throughout the globe. On King to head the new group. As principal spokesperson of the fiftieth anniversary of hi s assassination, the man who the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott, King devised a believed that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice protest strategy that included the recruitment and everywhere" 1s as acknowledged through public mobilization of African American churches. After the awareness as ever. Supreme Cou1t ove1turned Alabama's bus segregation laws in Browder v. Gayle (1956), King, C. K. Steele, Fred Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Shuttlesworth, and T.J. Jemison established the Southern Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. (1899-1984) and Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president, Alberta Williams King (1904-1974, the younger King King coordinated the struggle for civil rights throughout was introduced to the African-American social gospel the South. His 1958 publication of Stride Toward tradition by his father and grandfather, both of whom Freedom: The Montgome1y Stmy aided in catapulting him pastored at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church and were to the position of a national civil rights leader. Although affiliated with lte National Association for the he was busy writing, speaking, and gaining insights into Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). King's father the philosophy of nonviolence for the betterment of the also led campaigns against racial discrimination that movement's goals and objectives, during the late 1950s, would later become a model for his . son's political the SCLC's lack of success made the movement appear engagement. Despite his family's history of political and relatively dormant. A 1959 trip to India also led King to social activism, and King's apparent grooming for a become a staunch advocate of Mohandas Gandhi's similar life, as a teenager he was hesitant to pick up that nonviolence ethos, which he combined with the concepts mantle. That changed when he entered Atlanta's of a Clu·istia.n social gospel. Morehouse College in 1944. King found new spiritual advisors in Morehouse presi dent Benjamin E. I-lays and The southern civil rights movement gained new energy religion professor George Kelsey, who encouraged him to from the student-led lunch counter sit-in movement that view Christianity as a force for positive social change. caught the nation's attention on February I, 1960, when King described his deci sion to enter the ministry as a the "Greensboro Four" from North Carolina A & T State response to an "inner urge" calling him to "serve University sat-in at the racially segregated Woolwo1th's humanity." lunch counter. Their action ignited the sit-in movement that spread throughout the South during 1960. The sit-ins King's ordination took place during his last semester at brought into existence a new protest group, the Student Morehouse, and during his senior year, he was already Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). King's traversing the path of political activism. After receiving a interaction with students, especially Nashville's James Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Morehouse Bevel, Diane J. Na.sh, and John Lewis-whom Rev. College in 1948 and a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951 .lames Lawson taught the philosophy and tactics of direct from Crozer Theological Seminary, King entered Boston nonviolent protest tactics--often pushed King toward a University's School of Theology. Two years later he greater assertiveness and militancy. In May of 1961 , married Coretta Scott, who was studying mu sic at the students under the leadership of Nash, Lewis, and others
This publication is a project of the 2018 Nashville Conference on African American History and Culture. The author compiled the information. The M etropolitan Historical Commission edited and designed the materials. Photo of Dr. King at Fisk University on May 3, 1964 COU1tesy of Harold Lowe Jr./ The Tennessean. continued the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Freedom Rides in Mississippi. Between 1961 and 1962, Promised Land." The following evening while standing King's strategic differences with SNCC activists became on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, James Earl Ray apparent during the protest movement in Albany, forever silenced the voice of the Reverend Dr. Martin Georgia. Arrested twice during the Albany protests, when Luther King, Jr., with a single bullet. Four days later, an King left jail and subsequently left Albany without estimated 42,000 people led by Coretta Scott King, attaining a successful victory, some activists questioned SCLC, and union leaders silently marched through his leadership within the southern protest movement. Memphis in honor of King and demanded that Mayor Henry Loeb III give in to the union's requests. The By 1963, King had reaffirmed his prominence within the American Federation of State, County and Municipal movement tlu·ough his leadership of the Birmingham Employees (AFSCME) pledged support for the workers campaign, where the most massive protests to date were until "we have justice". taking place. The brutality of Birmingham officials and Alabama's governor George C. Wallace's refusal to Dr. King remained unwavering in his resolve to allow the admission of black students at the University of revolutionize the American social order through Alabama motivated President Kennedy to introduce nonviolent activism until his death. He was one of the major civil rights legislation. In August, King's address most identifiable leaders of the modern Civil Rights at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was Movement, yet fifty years after his assassination, many do the culmination of a wave of civil rights protest activity not recognize that King's radicalism underscored his that extended to northern cities. In his 1 Have a Dream revolutionary vision, his unapologetic opposition to the speech, King told America that its African American Vietnam War, and his crusade against global imperialism. citizens came to Washington to "cash a check... that will In his 1969 posthumously published essay, "A Testament give us on demand the riches of freedom and the security of Hope", King averred that " White America must of justice." Less than a month later shock waves moved recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved through the movement and the nation as dynamite blasted without radical changes in the structure of our society". Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing The "black revolution" was more than a civil rights Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson movement, he insisted. "It is forcing America to face all and Carol Denise McNair. The Reverend Dr. King its interrelated flaws- racism, pove1ty, militarism and preached three of the girls' funerals. King was named materialism." Time magazine's I 963 "Man of the Year" in its January 1964 issue, becoming the first African American -- Linda T. Wynn recipient of this honor.
On March 7, 1965, state police under orders from Sources Used: Governor George Wallace, confronted protesters with Clayborne Carson, Ralph E. Luker, and Penny A. Russel. tear gas and clubs, stopping a march from Selma to The Papers ofMartin Luther King, Jr. Volume 1: Called Montgomery and forcing them back across the Edmund to Serve, January 1929 - June 1951. Berkeley: University Pettus Bridge. Following the marches on March 7 and 9, of California Press, 1992. King postponed the Selma to Montgomery march until he Clayborne Carson, Peter Holloran, Ralph Luker, and received court approval. After receiving such, thousands Penny A. Russell. The Papers ofMartin Luther King, Jr. of black and white civil rights sympathizers from across Volume 5: Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959- the country joined the voting rights march. On March 25, December 1960. Berkeley: University of California Press, King addressed the protesters from the steps of the 2005. capitol in Montgomery, and on August 6, the 89th U. S. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of I 965. Michael K. Honey. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign. In December 1967 King announced the Poor People's New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Campaign, a crusade designed to improve government Martin Luther King, Jr. antipoverty efforts. This effo1t was in its early stages Stride Toward Freedom: The when Jan1es Lawson asked King to come to Memphis, Montgome1y St0ty. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1958. Tenn. on behalf of sanitation workers striking against Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Melvin Washington. A unfair treatment and wages. On March 28, 1968 King led Testament ofHope: The Essential Writings and Speeches thousands of sanitation workers and sympathizers on a ofMartin Luther King, Jr. San Francesco: Harper Collins, march tlu·ough downtown Memphis. He returned to 1991. Memphis for the last time in early April 1968. Addressing an audience at Bishop Charles J. Mason Martin Luther King, Jr. and Corne! West. The Radical Temple on April 3rd, King seemed hopeful in the face of King. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2015. the "difficult days" that lay ahead. He asserted "But it Linda T. Wynn "Beyond Patriarchy: The Meaning of really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Women of the World," in the mountaintop [and] I've seen the Promised Land." Lewis Baldwin and Paul Dekar, eds. Jn An Inescapable Continuing in the cadence of a Baptist preacher, he Network ofMutuality. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, declared, "I may not get there with you. But I want you to 2013.