22 Feb From Ralph J. Bunche '956 22 February 1956 Kew Gardens, N.Y.

This telegram of support is thefirst known communication to Kingfrom the prominent African-American diplomat and winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize.'

REVEREND M L KING JR 309 SOUTH JACKSON STR MONTGOMERY ALA

I GREET YOU AS A FELLOW AMERICAN AND A FELLOW NEGRO STOP YOU AND OUR FELLOW NEGRO CITIZENS OF MONTGOMERY ARE DOING HEROIC WORK IN THE VINEYARDS OF DEMOCRACY STOP YOUR PATIENT DETERMINATION YOUR WISDOM AND QUIET COURAGE ARE CONSTITUTING AN INSPIRING CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN DIGNITY STOP YOU HAVE STEADFASTLY REFUSED TO BARTER AWAY YOUR DIGNITY AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU FOR THAT STOP YOU ARE GOOD AMERICANS AND YOU ARE ACTING IN THE SPIRIT OF THE FINEST AMERICAN TRADITION AND IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF OUR COUNTRY YOU MAY BE CONFIDENT THAT IN THE END JUSTICE AND DECENCY WILL PREVAIL STOP I GREATLY ADMIRE AND WARMLY CONGRATULATE YOU ALL I KNOW THAT YOU WILL CONTINUE STRONG IN SPIRIT AND THAT YOU WILL STAND FIRM AND UNITED IN THE FACE OF THREATS AND RESORTS TO POLICE STATE METHODS OF INTIMIDATION STOP RIGHT IS ON YOUR SIDE AND ALL THE WORLD KNOWS IT STOP

RALPH J BUNCHE

PHWSr. MLKP-MBU: Box 14.

I. Ralph Johnson Bunche (1904-1971), born in Detroit, Michigan, earned his B.A. (1927) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his M.A.(1928) and Ph.D. (1934) from Harvard University. While teaching at Howard University (1929- 1950),Bunche assisted Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal in writing An Ama'cun Dilemma (I~M),a study of the United States' black and white race relations. During World War I1 Bunche became a War Department analyst of African and Far Eastern affairs; by 194he headed the State Department's Division of Dependent Area Affairs. 'That same year he composed the trusteeship sections of the United Nations Charter. In 1947 Bunche joined the UN Secretariat, where he developed the guidelines under which many territories gained nationhood. In 1950 Bunche became the first African-American Nobel Peace Prize winner after heading a UN peace- seeking commission that negotiated a 1949 armistice between the new state of Israel and the Arab nations. Bunche continued to direct UN peace-keeping efforts untiljust before his death in 1971.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project From Roy Wilkins

22 February 1956 Jamaica, N.Y.

While meeting on 22 February in Atlanta with King, his father, and other black '34 leaders, attorney A. T Walden telephoned two NAACP lawyers, Thurgood Marshall The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project

and Arthur Shores, who promised him that King would have the NAACP’sfull legal 24 Feb support.’ Wilkins conveys a similar message in this telegram sent the same afternoon. ‘956 In a statement released the next day, Wilkins derided the indictments as the actions of a ‘police state,” while Marshall promised that ‘

REV M L KING 309 SOUTH JACKSON MONTGOMERY ALA

ALL OUR PEOPLE OVER THE NATION AND MILLIONS OF FRIENDS STAND WITH YOU AND YOUR COURAGEOUS FELLOW CITIZENS AS YOU ANSWER THE INDICTMENT OF THE GRAND JURY. WE WILL CONTINUE TO OFFER LEGAL ADVICE UPON YOUR REQUEST. PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL UPON US.

ROY WILKINS

PHWSr. MLKP-MBU: Box 67,

I. King, Stride Toward Freedom, pp. 145-146. Arthur Davis Shores (‘go+-), a native of Birmingham, received his B.A. (1927) from Talladega College and his LL.B. (1935) from Lasalle Extension Univer- sity. Hejoined the NAACP legal staff in 1944and devoted his legal career to civil rights law in Alabama, including Autherine Lucy’s desegregation case against the University of Alabama. 2. NAACP press release, “NAACP Support Pledged to Bus Protest Victims,” 23 February. When the bus boycott began, Roy Wilkins noted privately that the NAACP “will not officially enter the [Rosa Parks] case or use its legal staff on any other basis than the abolition of segregated seating on the city buses. . . . We could not enter an Alabama case asking merely for more polite segregation” (Roy Wilkins to W. C. Patton, 27 December 1955).

“Negroes Pledge to Keep Boycott,” by Wayne Phillips

24 February 1956 New York, N.Y.

At a prayer meeting on 23 February, King re$ected on his arrest that day and promised to continue using the weapons of love and protest to effect change. Several thousand peopk attended the mass meeting at Ralph Abernathy S First Baptist Church, including many reporters. Thefollowing quotationsfrom Kings speech appeared in a New York Times article the next day, itsJirstfront9age article on the &us boycott.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Montgomery Improvement Associa- tion, which has directed the eighty-day boycott, told the gathering that the pro- test was not against a single incident but over things that “go deep down into the archives of history.” “We have known humiliation, we have known abusive language, we have been plunged into the abyss of oppression,” he told them. “And we decided to rise up 135