Martin Luther King, Sr.
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Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. (December 19, 1899 – November 11, 1984) was a Baptist minister, an early civil rights leader and an advocate for social justice. He was also the father of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who was born in 1929. The elder King led the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and his personal example helped inspire Martin Luther King Jr. to enter the ministry. King Sr. was also a significant leader of the civil rights movement, becoming the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter in Atlanta and of the Civic and Political League, and encouraging his son to become active in the movement. After King Jr.'s death, his father continued to be active in public life, and played a role in Jimmy Carter's presidential victory in 1976.
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[edit] Background
King was born Michael King[1] on December 19, 1899 in Stockbridge, Georgia. His father was James (Jim) King (1864–1933) and his mother was Delia Linsey King (1875–1924).[2] Michael was the eldest son of nine children[3] and the family lived as sharecroppers.
King was a member of the Floyd Baptist Church and decided to become a preacher after being inspired by ministers who were prepared to stand up for racial equality. He left Stockbridge for Atlanta, where his sister Woodie was boarding with A.D. Williams, then the head of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. King started a courtship with Williams' daughter, Alberta, and the Williams family encouraged him to finish his education and to become a preacher. King completed his high school education at Bryant Preparatory School, and began to preach in several black churches in Atlanta.
In 1926, King started his ministerial degree at the Morehouse School of Religion. On Thanksgiving Day of the same year, he married Alberta in 1926 after eight years of courtship in the Ebenezer Church. The couple would have three children in four years – a daughter, Willie Christine (1927–), Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968), and a second son, Albert Daniel (1930–1969) .
King Sr. became leader of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in March 1931 after the death of Williams. With the country in Depression, church finances were struggling, but King organised membership and fundraising drives that restored these to health. By 1934, King had become a widely respected leader of the local church and had changed his name from Michael King to Martin Luther King.
King would be the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church for four decades, wielding great influence in the black community and earning some degree of respect from the white community. He also broadcast on WAEC a religious radio station in Atlanta.
In his 1950 essay An Autobiography of Religious Development, King Jr. wrote that his father was a major influence on his entering the ministry.' 'I guess the influence of my father also had a great deal to do with my going in the ministry. This is not to say that he ever spoke to me in terms of being a minister, but that my admiration for him was the great moving factor; He set forth a noble example that I didn't mind following.
In his autobiography, King Jr. remembered his father leaving a shoe shop because he and his son were asked to change seats: This was the first time I had seen Dad so furious. That experience revealed to me at a very early age that my father had not adjusted to the system, and he played a great part in shaping my conscience. I still remember walking down the street beside him as he muttered, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it." Another story related by Martin Luther King, Jr. was that once the car his father was driving was stopped by a police officer, and the officer addressed the senior King as 'boy'. King pointed to his son, saying "This is a boy, I'm a man; until you call me one, I will not listen to you."
King Jr. became an associate pastor at Ebenezer in 1948, and his father wrote a letter of recommendation for him to Crozer College. Eventually, and despite theological differences, father and son would serve together as joint pastors at the church.
King Sr. was a major figure in the civil rights movement in Georgia, rising to become the head of the NAACP in Atlanta and the Civic and Political League. He led the fight for equal teacher's salaries in Atlanta, and played an instrumental role in ending Jim Crow laws in the state. King Sr. had also refused to ride on Atlanta's bus system since the 1920s, after a vicious attack on black passengers with no action against those responsible. King Sr. stressed the need for an educated, politically active black ministry.
In October 1960, when his son Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a peaceful sit-in in Atlanta, Georgia, Robert Kennedy telephoned the judge and helped secure King's release. King expressed his appreciation for these calls. Although King Jr. himself made no endorsement, his father, who had previously been a lifelong registered Republican, and had endorsed Republican Richard Nixon, switched his support to Kennedy.
After Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death in 1968, King Sr. continued to serve as pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church until 1975. His wife Alberta had been murdered in June 1974.
King Sr. played a notable role in the nomination of Jimmy Carter as the Democratic candidate for President in the 1976 election. After Carter's success in the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary and the Florida primary, some liberal Democrats were worried about his success and began an "ABC" movement – for "Anyone But Carter" – to try to head off his nomination. King Sr. pointed to Carter's leadership in ending the era of segregation in Georgia, and helping to repeal laws ending voting restrictions that especially disenfranchised African Americans. With King's support, Carter continued to build a coalition of black and white voters and win the nomination. King Sr. delivered the invocation at the 1976 and 1980 Democratic National Conventions.
With his son's widow Coretta Scott King, King Sr. was present when President Carter awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rev. King. Jr. posthumously in 1977.
He released his autobiography in 1980, and died of a heart attack on November 11 1984 at the Crawford W. Long Hospital in Atlanta.
[edit] Notes
- ^ National Archives. Retrieved 12 May 2006.
- ^ King Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 May 2006.
- ^ Ancestry of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner. Retrieved 23 May 2006.
[edit] Books
- David Collins, Not Only Dreamers: the story of Martin Luther King, Sr. and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Elgin, Ill: Brethren Press, 1986)
- Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., Daddy King: an Autobiography (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980)
