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Page 10
The Maroon Tiger
May, 1968
fHartut Kutbrr King ir.
1929 - 1968
Martin Luther King, Jr., is like the great
Yggdrasill tree, “whose roots,” a poet said,
“are deep in earth but in whose upper branch
es the stars of heaven are glowing and astir.”
His roots went deeply into the inferno of
slavery,this black baby born January 15,
1929, to Alberta Williams King and Martin
Luther King, Sr. Now the roots have grown
to those upper branches, and he is indeed
among the stars of heaven, this beautiful man,
husband, father, pastor, leader.
He is free and he is home, and the world
has come to his home to honor him and,
hopefully, to repent the sins against him and
all humanity.
Martin Luther King came of a deeply re
ligious family tradition. His great grandfather
was a slave exhorter. His maternal grand
father, the Rev. Adam Daniel Williams, was
the second pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church,
where for eight years Dr. King and his father
were co-pastors.
This lineage which permeated his life was
an enormous influence on him and what he
would ultimately become.
His father, born at the turn of the century
in Stockbridge, Georgia, came to Atlanta in
1916. In 1925, Martin Luther King, Sr.,
married Alberta Williams. They were blessed
with a daughter and two sons. The youngest
son is the Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams
King of Louisville, Kentucky, who went to
Memphis, Tennessee, one infamous day “to
help my brother.” The daughter is Christine
King Farris of Atlanta, who went to a home
that night to comfort her brother’s wife.
The other son was Martin Luther King, Jr.
Reared in a home of love, understanding,
and compassion, young Martin was to find
501 Auburn Avenue a buffer against the ram
pant injustices of the “sick society” for which
he would become the physician.
A serious student, Martin Luther King
was an early admissions student at Morehouse
College in Atlanta, from which he graduated
with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948.
His great “wrestling inside with the pro
blem of a vocation” must have been prophetic
of the many agonizing hours which would
eventually characterize his life.
Having felt the stings of “man’s inhumani
ty to man,” Martin Luther King believed law
would be his sphere for combating injustices.
The ministry as he saw it was not socially
relevant; however, at Morehouse,in the bril
liant Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, he saw the ideal
of what he wanted a minister to be. In his
junior year, he gave himself to the ministry.
At Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester,
Pennsylvania, Martin Luther King was further
stimulated but still his quest for a method to
end social evil continued. Through courses
at the University of Pennsylvania, deep, seri
ous reading, and provocative lectures, he began
to find answers which would crystallize his
thinking and give him the philosophy by
which he would “redeem the soul of Ameri
ca.” Because of the color of his skin,his life
was threatened at this institution, but with
the aplomb that would be typical of his re
sponse to later threats, he disarmed his
attacker.
He was the first Negro to be elected presi
dent of Crozer’s student body, and this began
what would become a series of firsts for this
son whose roots were in slavery.
With a partially satisfied, but still ferment
ing mind, he matriculated at Boston Univer
sity, at the time the center of personalism,the
philosophical posture which he had adopted.
Studying under two of the greatest exponents
of his philosophy, Martin King was to find
this theory an enormously sustaining force in
the future.
In Boston, he met Coretta Scott, an equal
ly concerned and talented New England Con
servatory student from the South. On June
King Family Portrait
These are the poor and needy that Dr. King gave
his life for. They are asking if there be any hope
left.
Some of the 200,000 that followed him in death.
(Continued from Page 8)
Black Power Symposium Ends
With Questions At Wabash
Another v/ay to help would be to educate the
public as to what the Negro has done in this
country towards bettering American life. He sug
gested this be done by asking libraries to set out
and make available a permanent collection on Afro-
American life.
Charles Burris, also a student at Morehouse, told
the audience that he saw something at Wabash Col
lege to take back to the Negro students at More
house. He said. he had seen in the Wabash men a
hope for tomorrow, for they had shown him that
not all whites are racists and bigots.
18, 1953, at her Marion, Alabama, home she
became Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was
later to realize her highest dreams, not in con-
certizing, but in singing the songs ot freedom
and being her husband’s deciple from “Mont
gomery to Montgomery.”
This happy marriage brought into life four
children; Yolanda Denise, born November 17,
1955; Martin Luther, III, born October 23,
1957; Eexter Scott, born January 30, 1961;
and Bernice Albertine, born March 28, 1963.
The Ph.D. degree was awarded Martin
Luther King in 1955, and again there was a
great “wrestling inside.” Sensitive to re
turn to the land from whence he had sprung,
and preach a “socially relevant and intellectu
ally responsible” gospel, he accepted the
“call” to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in
Montgomery, Alabama, and began his pastor
ate, September 1, 1954.
The cradle of the Confederacy was a seeth
ing cauldron of racial injustice, and this
grandson of a founder of the Atlanta Branch
NAACP was asked to assume the presidency
of the Montgomery Branch NAACP. Again
the wrestle.
Finally, he answered negatively, but on
December 1, 1955, the refusal of Mrs. Rosa
Parks to give up her seat to a white man on a
Montgomery bus made the young, erudite
minister answer affirmatively when asked to
chair the newly formed Montgomery Improve
ment Association.
Mrs. Parks’ arrest for violation of the sys
tem of racial segregation set off a new Ameri
can Revolution. Daring to do what was
right, Ralph and Juanita Abernathy stood up
with Martin and Coretta King when there
were nothing but “valleys of despair,” and
their loyalty has never known the midnight.
Now, the myriad religious and philosophi
cal forces which had shaped his life would be
put to the test and this selfless, compassionate
man would “forget himself into immortality.”
“Christian love can bring brotherhood on
earth. There is an element of God in every
man,” said he after his home was bombed in
Montgomery. This new attack on America’s
social system gave everyday application to
the teachings of Jesus, and captured the
conscience of the world.
On April 4, 1968, an assassin took the
earthly life of Martin Ltither King, Jr.
Profound, but unpretentious; gentle, but
valiant; Baptist, but ecumenical; loving justice,
the deep roots of this Great Spirit resolved
the agonizing wrestling and gave all mankind
new hope for a bright tomorrow.
He Had a Dream.
“I Tried to Love
and Serve Humanity”
“If any of you are around when I have to
meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral.
And if you get somebody to deliver the
eulogy, tell him not to talk too long. . . .
Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel
Peace Prize. That isn’t important. Tell them
not to mention that I have three or four
hundred other awards. That’s not important.
Tell them not to mention where I went to
school. I’d like somebody to mention that
day, that ‘Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to
give his life serving others.’ I’d like for
somebody to say that day that ‘Martin Luther
King, Jr., tried to love somebody.’ I want you
to say that day that I tried to be right on the
war question. I want you to be able to say
that day that I did try to feed the hungry.
And I want you to be able to say that day
that I did try in my life to clothe those who
were naked. I want you to say on that day,
that I did try, in my life, to visit those who
were in prison. I want you to say that I tried
to love and serve humanity. ”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Atlanta, Georgia
Sunday, February 4, 1968