MLK has been my guiding light in my life and motivator for my faith and ministry. He profoundly changed my life when I attended his funeral in April, 1968, found in question 2 .What attracted me to King was his deep faith in Jesus Christ and how he applied His teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, and parables, and how He reached out to the outcasts and poor of his day. Another reason was very personal. My dad and King were taught by the same professor, during different periods, Dr. Harold DeWolff, at Boston University. Later, in retirement, while living in Lakeland, Dr. DeWolff shared with me the civil rights campaigns he participated with Dr. King, as one of his closest advisors.
King discovered that to apply Jesus’ teachings for change for justice for those victimized by violence and institutional racism in the South was to apply nonviolent methods and civil disobedience against a justice system supported by Jim Crow laws, that benefitted whites at the expense of blacks and other minorities. He heard about a little Hindu man, Mohatmas Ghandi from India, who had moved his people towards independence in the late 1940’s, applying the non-violent methods of civil disobedience against the jougernaut of the British Empire. He too, as a non-Chritian, loved Jesus and believed that the Sermon on the Mount and the parables could move the British mountain off the backs of the peasants and “untoucheables” of his land. King and his wife, Coretta visited India and late Gandhi’s home.
The first application of nonviolent civil disobedience was in 1955 during the Montgomery AL bus boycott. One day, a black woman, Rosa Parks refused to move to the “colored” seats in the back (which were full) so that a white man could sit in her seat. She was arrested and jailed. Black folk finally said, “enough is enough.” Local black pastors, imncluding King organized churches to a bus boycott. The boycott lasted for more than a year, with black workers finding all kinds of ways other than buses to get to their jobs. The boycott was successful, not because the bus company and city’s racist minds were changed and suddenly were compassionate to black people. Rather, the bus company was loosing revenue because most of their customers were black.
Twenty-seven year old MLK emerged as the leader of the boycott, which would launch him as the leader a national civil rights movement. During that year, members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed his home, nearly killing his wife and child. After that event, King prayed in his kitchen whether he should continue with movement, to protect his family and himself. During his spiritual struggle during that aweful night, he received the assurance “from the Lord,” that no matter what happened to him and his family, God would protect them and with the Movement, no matter what.
King knew he was a dead man. Sooner or later somebody would take his life. In Memphis TN, on April 3, 1968, King preached his last sermon, before an assassin’s bullet took his life the next morning. Many in the church worried about what could happen to him. He responded by saying, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain, And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
All of these events in King’s life came into focus at his funeral while his casket passed by me by when I made a silent vow, as a 20 year old young man, called to serve Jesus Christ, that I would follow King and “become a Christian social activist.” I continue to live that vow as a 75 year old.
