Remembering Martin Luther King and his times
Historians will tell you, the age period in the USA from 1930 to 1970 was an age of greatness. Many great political leaders rose to lead us through times of economic depression and civil strife; great generals led our armies in wars; great talented inventors and scientists produced amazing technological advances; the entertainment world gave us musicians, actors and actresses that will always be remembered for the pleasure that followed performances of their art; writers produced literary works that will be read and reread by generations to come.
In the midst of this age, in the fifties, a man appeared to lead his people through a very difficult time. One might say he was a political leader, but he was never president; not even a governor or a member of congress; but he changed our nation in a powerful way and will be remembered by millions because of the better world he left behind. That man, of course, was Martin Luther King, civil rights leader.
I was born in February, 1930, at the beginning of the age of greatness in the history of our country. I lived through depression times, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the last days of that other age, not so great; a time when men were allowed to lynch others with no fear of arrest; thirsty men and women were not allowed to drink at a fountain because of the color of their skin; discrimination of all kinds was common and considered to be the right of other superior beings.
So I write as an observer of those times; not as historian, political analyst or news reporter. I lived through the time of history that produced Dr. King. I write for the benefit of those who were born after 1950, who only know about Dr. King as an historical character, one of the great men who made our age of greatness an age to be studied and remembered by all students of the times. He was also one of the millions who were excluded from so many places and activities because their skin was black, or at least darker in color than the skin of others who made the rules in communities. Martin Luther objected to this unfair treatment of his friends, relatives, and neighbors. He spoke out loudly and forcibly in protest. Martin Luther King and I lived in the same country at the same time but we lived in different worlds.
I grew up in Huntington, West Virginia, and had very little interaction with Negroes in my young days. There were no Negroes, colored people as they were called, in my schools. That was true from elementary through High School. In the years from birth in 1930 to High School graduation in 1948 I had only seen one or two “colored people” from a distance. Jobs were hard to find in June 1948 but I found a job working behind the counter at a popular Drive-In. We served food, mostly hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue sandwiches and root beer or real beer. The customers were all white skinned. That had always been my view of the world. I lived in a world populated with other white skinned people, so I thought nothing of that anomaly.
One day an elderly, black man came in and ordered some food. Although his skin was dark-skinned, I saw no reason to treat him any different from any other customer, so I took his order and served him. I had never been taught to treat Negroes any other way. The man took the food, paid the money and left quietly. Somehow my boss heard about my black customer. I was severely lectured, “chewed-out”, for behaving inappropriately. I was told to never serve “any of those people” again. That made no sense to me. Discrimination must be taught to the young. I resented that command and was determined to disregard it if the occasion arose. During the short time left before I moved on to a better job no other African-American customer came to our establishment.
There was racism everywhere in our world in 1948. President Truman began working for civil rights legislation but there was strong opposition in the Congress. My father was a good man but he was a man of his time. He despised Jews and would never regard a black man as his equal. But he was also a devout Republican of his time who hated FDR, one of the truly great men of that time when I was growing up. My father was born on the side of a hill in 1884 in West Virginia, grew up on a farm, lived in poverty all of his life and had very limited formal education; as a child he spent one year in a one room school house. He was a product of his time and life experiences. He was one of millions with similar lives and similar views about Jews, Catholics, Italians (spics to him) and black-skinned people.
To him, Jews were the rich people who owned all of the department stores down town. He probably never, ever spoke, man to man, to a Catholic; Italians were the gangster leaders of the mobs in Chicago; black people were people who lived in that area over in the south side of town, on the south side of the train tracks. He probably had met the black man who shined shoes at a location on the side-walk, out side a down town barber shop. I’m sure he didn’t know his name and never spoke to him.
Until I met a black customer in 1948, Negroes were not a part of my world in any real, meaningful way. In movies they appeared as nice, harmless characters, usually subservient to the white stars. I knew such people existed but I had no feelings one way or another in their regard. Thanks to president Truman and the Korean War draft that eventually changed for me. Harry Truman had noted the faithful service of many brave black men in our armed services during WWII. Mr. Truman was a World War I veteran who spent some time in the army in France. Shortly after WWII ended the president was shocked to learn a veteran with black skin was lynched in a Southern town. Truman began integration of the armed forces while he was president. He then began actively pursuing civil rights legislation.
So in 1953, I was serving in the US Navy, on an aircraft carrier, the USS Kearsarge, and there were some black men on our ship. Encounters were rare for me because I was an Electronics Technician and very few ETs in the Navy at that time were black. There was one exception I met. Robert was not his real name but let me call him Robert. When the new ET joined our division we were surprised to see he was black skinned. I was a Second class ET and Robert was a First class ET. On our ship we happened to have another Second class ET, a white kid from South Carolina. I’ll call him Elmer, although that was not his real name. He never said “Hi” to the new ET. It was not surprising that the Carolina boy, Elmer, did not like First class Robert and did not feel comfortable serving with him on the same ship.
One night Elmer made a serious mistake while repairing an important radar system. His actions caused a fire destroying most of the wiring and electronic components in a radar system used for Fire Control for certain guns on the carrier. We were at sea, sailing near Korea, so the equipment had to be repaired quickly. First class Robert was given the job of repairing that radar system. He needed help and he asked me to assist because I knew how to read circuit diagrams and he did not feel confident of his ability to do that. I knew he was a very competent ET otherwise and I felt honored to be asked to help. We worked long hours for most of two days to complete the job. The repaired radar system worked like new. That should have eliminated any doubts about the competence of ET Robert. That performance also should have erased any ideas Elmer had about his superiority to Robert.
Although steps had been made to integrate our armed forces, we had a long way to go yet. Martin Luther King saw much inequality embedded in our way of life in this country we proclaim as the land of freedom and equality. Many believed the time had come to correct the problem. In the early years of the fifties we read stories in the daily newspapers and watched TV reports about clashes between white-racists and Negro students trying to enter schools that had previously admitted only white students in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama. A student tried to enter a college in Mississippi and was refused entrance by a violent crowd. We heard and read about attempts to integrate several public schools and colleges in the South. Usually Dr. King was not mentioned as present at the scenes of conflict but he was there in Spirit without a doubt. There were no incidents in my hometown, Huntington, in West Virginia. All was quiet here. Martin Luther was busy elsewhere.
I entered Graduate school in, Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh in the Fall of 1957. There were no black faculty members in the Mathematics Department at CIT. There were no black students in my classes and I saw none as I walked across campus daily. We did have students from Japan, China and India. There were no discussions of the Civil Rights movement in our gatherings. I understood there were black students in Pittsburgh public schools at that time, but in 1958 there were no stories about clashes among students in those schools. All seemed to be quiet in Pittsburgh.
Near our school, Carnegie IT, there was a Jewish community. It was the best shopping location near us and location of several good places to eat; except on Saturday, the Sabbath day for the Jews in that area. All businesses were closed on Sabbath day. Among my new university friends, I saw no indications of discrimination against Jews. There were the usual ethnic jokes and remarks about the people and their community. These would be labeled as politically incorrect today. However, most Jewish people have a good sense of humor and often make jokes about their own people. Witness the many Jewish comedians such as Jack Benny, Rodney Dangerfield, Woody Allen and George Burns.
By 1960, news stories about sit-downs and other civil rights protests were rampant. By this time stories about civil rights protests had to compete with news stories about the Space program and our rivalry with the USSR, thanks to Sputnik. The nation had launched an effort to reorganize our school system curriculum to catch up with the Russian educational system. The New Math was introduced to students and teachers in the early sixties. That was a big mistake. Mathematics education was not improved by the New math. I’m sure at that time Dr. King believed the real failure in our educational system was the battle to resist integration of our schools. In 1954, President Eisenhower managed to pass Federal legislation integrating our public schools. That only initiated years of warfare between Federal agents working to enforce the new integration laws, working to open public schools to black students, opposed by segregationists fighting to prevent their admission. Feelings were strong on both sides.
Civil Rights legislation was hotly debated in the 1960 presidential election year. Democrats John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson supported Dr. King and the civil rights movement. Fortunately, Kennedy won the election. He made a strong effort to pass legislation to eliminate, or at least reduce, racism in the schools and the work place. He seemed to have a strong desire to eradicate injustice wherever it showed its ugly head. But there was opposition to his ways at high places in Washington and in many state capitals. Throughout the Sixties we saw civil rights workers and protesters attacked by dogs and beaten by Sheriffs and their Deputies. But Martin Luther King was there with his followers. People were arrested, many were beaten and killed; churches were bombed.
The sixties are remembered by most of us as the “Hippy years.” University students were very much a part of this movement; a protest against many things in current life styles. To show their opposition some wore strange clothing and adopted habits that disturbed parents. Sexual freedom and drug use was evident and widespread in many communities. More important probably was their support of the Civil Rights movement. Bob Dylan and many other musicians sang songs that expressed the feelings of young people in those troubled times; songs about freedom, peace and love. So-called hippies, rebelling against the wrongs and injustice in our way in the USA, participated in sit-downs and were proud to be arrested. Students protested against the war in Vietnam. Student protesting against the war and the ways of their parents became intertwined with the civil rights protesting against racism. Hippy communities were very integrated, mixing black and white along with Asians with no regard to racial differences. Hippy life in the sixties combined strange bedfellows but those who participated were strong supports of Martin Luther King and his movement. Dr. King was admired by the young.
Without fail, people who stand up in protest will be confronted by those who wish to drive them down again. Protesters call for change. People who are comfortable with life as it is resist those who push for change. In the sixties, we had two strong groups pushing for big changes in our American way of life. They were opposed by most older people because change in ways of habitual activities and ways of thinking becomes more difficult as one grows older. We think of the hippies as the youth of our country but, unfortunately, many young people in those days also resisted the change wanted by their hippy acquaintances. The young man enjoying his college years and looking forward to a good job doesn’t want any change in the world that will disrupt his planned future. He wants to eventually marry and have a family. Enjoying sexual freedom now and indulging in drugs or too much alcohol can blow his future out of the water. No thanks, my hippy friend. Active participation in Civil Rights in sit-downs, with possible arrest, does not seem an option for our secure young man. The young students who adopted the hippy life style, and/or became actively involved in civil rights protests, took terrible risks with their futures in this new world they were creating.
Students opposed to both the Vietnam War and racism met powerful opponents ranging from the President down to small town crowds, police and sheriffs. Those were violent times in many ways. The proof of this is seen in the historical record of the sixties. Many died for their beliefs. Several students protesting the War were shot and killed by National Guard soldiers at Kent State University in Ohio. Civil rights fighters, both young and old were murdered in many locations. It was a decade marked by assassinations of leaders. Three great men, a President, a hopeful presidential candidate and Dr. King, were murdered. All were leaders pushing for change and in particular were a part of the Civil Rights movement; Martin Luther King was the leader in this movement and a prime target. His assassination was inevitable. Powerful leaders, men opposed to the changes demanded by Dr. King and his political supporters, would not stand by with hands folded, watching. Dr. King knew this but he believed in his cause. He was willing to die if necessary.
He was a follower of a man who lived and died 2000 years earlier, a man with a cause so important he laid down his life, well knowing the cross must be the result of his preaching, an end that must follow as the night follows day. Martin Luther King decided early in his life to follow Jesus, to death if necessary. Martin Luther gave his life to God and followed his teachings. I’m sure at some point, as a young man, he said to God, “I will follow where ever you lead.” The Bible tells us God sent Moses to Pharaoh to bring his people out of slavery in Egypt; likewise, God also sent Martin into his world crying out for justice and freedom for his people.
So he walked bravely into a world of people suffering unjustly, living daily under the domination of people claiming that right to control and abuse, because of their different skin color. He fought the battles against Sheriffs and their dogs and their gas pellets, side by side, with his friends, the people he loved. God gave Moses miracles to accomplish his mission but Martin Luther had no magical miracles to help, other than the miracle of wisdom, bravery and the strong faith in God that assured him he was doing the right thing. And God gave him a dream to show the way.
Bobby Kennedy saw the world as it was in 1968, as others did, but he did not ask why. He preferred to focus on how it could be and should be. So he asked, “Why not?” Martin Luther King also knew very well the world as it was in his day; a troubled world full of injustice and hate. But God gave him a vision of a better world that could be. He found a beautiful way to describe his vision of that world; the world that he believed could be, and must become, reality. In powerful, touching words he passed on his vision to his followers who were working to make that world a reality. Some reading these words can still his voice ringing out in 1963, over the gathered crowd in Washington, DC, so many years ago; a multitude who loved their beloved leader as he loved them. The man stood tall, looking out over the heads of the people he loved and in his clear memorable voice he said the beautiful words that will always be regarded as a part of the identity of the man. We must never forget the man and his dream he shared that day.
“I’ve been to the mountain top, ……..and I have a dream…..”
Upon entering college in northwestern Wisconsin, all the students boycotted a popular bar that had denied entrance to our black football players. From there I became immersed in the civil rights movement, never having anything disparaging in my mind about black people.
I was fortunate to attend the quadrennial conference of the Methodist Church in Omaha Nebraska. I recovered from near pneumonia in time to go to the New Year's eve lecture with about 5000 in attendance. I was on the balcony about 40 feet from where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke on the stage, surrounded by bodyguards. At first, his speech seemed rather dull with that resounding baritone. But, by the time he finished, I felt like going out and dying for him. Recently, Dr. Thomas F Freeman, 96, retired after 65 years of teaching philosophy and deleting some of the greatest debate teams ever, defeating the world in competitions large and small. Before he came to Houston in 1949, he taught a young man in Atlanta how to speak effectively––Martin Luther King. Freeman also taught many others like Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland, as well is coaching Denzel Washington for the movie, The Great Debaters.
I was fortunate to teach one year 1974-75 at Marshall University and found Huntington to be a very wonderful, but quaint town to live in. The most hateful talk of black people I ever heard was in a Morgantown barbershop my first month during my doctoral studies at WVU. I never went back there. I met a brilliant young black doctoral student while there who hired me to come to Houston thirty years ago after he became vice president of Texas Southern University. The recent superior of mine was a black physicist who worked on the South Texas nuclear project. Last week, I joined, Dr. Mae Jemison, a medical doctor and former astronaut on her program funded by DARPA, 100 Year Star Ship.
Finally, we have here at AD a fellow founder of the Montgomery Improvement Association with Dr. King and a superlative author and chronicler of the civil rights movement, Dr. Uriah J Fields.
Ron