Dateline:
Montgomery, Alabama. January 23, 1966
The Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery is only a block from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., served as pastor during the Civil Rights Movement.
Amid a city scape of white stone government buildings, the red-brick church stands out, ironically, as the only "building of color."
Upon conclusion of the freedom march from Selma to Montgomery on March 21, 1965, g
overnment officials would not allow Dr. King to ascend the capitol building's many steps to address protesters. They were afraid he might trod on a bronze star dedicated to Jefferson Davis, the first president of the Confederacy, which is embedded in the top step.
Instead, King stood on a temporary platform at the base of the capitol steps from which he addressed more than 25,000 people, saying, "We're not about to turn around. We're on the move now. No wave of racism can stop us."
The King family lived in a parsonage, a few blocks from the church, that is now the Dexter Parsonage Museum and which is maintained in period décor.
There, in the small kitchen, the museum's tour director, Dr. Shirley Cherry, encouraged us on the Living Legacy Pilgrimage to crowd around the table.
There, she told us, "Dr. King came home about midnight. He got one of those threatening phone calls that says, 'Nigger, you're next. If you're not out of this town in three days, we're going to blow your house up and blow your brains out.'
"He couldn't sleep. He started pacing. He ended up here in the kitchen. He warmed up a cup of coffee. And he sat there at that table with fear creeping up on his soul.
"By his own admission, he came into this kitchen to figure out how to get out of Montgomery before somebody killed his little baby, Yokie (Yolanda).
"He's praying out loud, 'Jesus, I'm losing my courage.'
"He heard that inner voice say, 'Martin Luther, stand up for truth. Stand up for justice. Stand up for righteousness.'
"It was the turning point, a timely moment, a revelation, a word from God, an epiphany. And he heard it crystal clear."
Dr. Cherry's discourse then took us to another moment in Dr. King's life. She said,
"The night before he was murdered in Memphis, he said, 'I'm happy tonight. I'm not fearing any man. I'm just doing God's will.'
"Where he lost his fear was Montgomery, Alabama, January 23, 1966, right in this kitchen around midnight when he was 27 years old."
Quote from the documentary,
Eyes on the Prize, disc 3, program 6, "Bridge to Freedom" (1965)
"We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. That will be a day not as a white man, not as a black man. That will be the day of man as man.
However difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long because truth preserved will rise again.
How long? Not long.
Because no lie can live forever.
How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
How long? Not long. Because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He's trampling out the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are sown. He's loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on. Glory Alleluia. Glory Alleluia. Glory Alleluia. Glory Alleluia. His truth is marching on."
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-Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, at the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery.
Next blog: Delayed Justice: 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
