Martin Luther King, Jr

Pastor and Martyr, 1929-1968

Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may strive to secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Dear friends,

The Episcopal Church honors The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, as a prophet and martyr. "After preaching at our Cathedral in Washington DC on March 31, 1968, King went to Memphis in support of sanitation workers in their struggle for better wages. There, he proclaimed that he had been 'to the mountaintop' and had seen 'the Promised Land ' and that he knew that one day he and his people would be 'free at last.' On the following day, April 4, he was cut down by an assassin's bullet." (1)

Born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. earned his doctoral degree in religion from Boston University in 1955. Following completion of his doctoral coursework in 1954, King settled in Montgomery, Alabama, as the resident pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. On December 1, 1955, longtime Montgomery resident Rosa Parks was arrested and jailed after refusing to surrender her seat on a public bus to a white male passenger. Four days later, when Parks was convicted of violating local segregation laws, Montgomery’s African American community staged a massive boycott of the city’s bus system. Planned as a one-day protest, the boycott expanded under the leadership of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association, which selected the twenty-six-year-old King as its president and spokesman.

King proved to be the ideal choice to orchestrate and sustain the Montgomery bus boycott. As a relative newcomer to Montgomery, he was able to bring together all factions of the black community without regard to past rivalries. Through inspirational addresses delivered at mass meetings in Montgomery’s black churches, King galvanized support for the boycott and clearly articulated the case for nonviolent action, declaring, “We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force.” Continuing for an unprecedented 381 days, the bus boycott ended only after the United States Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.

The success of the Montgomery bus boycott catapulted King into the national spotlight. In February 1957, Time featured his portrait on its cover and published an in-depth profile describing the pastor as “one of the nation’s remarkable leaders.” The cover portrait by Boris Chaliapin, a frequent Time cover artist, portrays King in a suit and tie with a Montgomery city bus in the foreground being boarded by an integrated crowd of riders. The background shows a black-and-white sketch of a figure in ministerial robes delivering an address from the pulpit. The article declared that “King reached beyond law books and writs, beyond violence and threats, to win his people—and challenge all people—with a spiritual force that aspired even to ending prejudice in man’s mind.” When asked about the inspiration for his actions, King replied, “The spirit of passive resistance came to me from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. The techniques of execution came from Gandhi.” ' (2)

Dr. King was a follower of Jesus, who understood in his very core the commandments to love God and love neighbor. May we, who claim citizenship in God's Kingdom by our baptism, also be moved to love as Christ loves us; speaking only truth, standing up for the poor and the oppressed, resisting evil, and recognizing our kinship with every living thing.

May you be filled with the hope of the Resurrection each moment,

Nancy+



Photo Credit: Martin Luther King Jr. by Boris Chaliapin (1904–1979) / Watercolor and pencil on board, 1957

(1) Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2022, Church Publishing Co. NY, 174

(2) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: https://npg.si.edu/learn/classroom-resource/martin-luther-king-jr-1929%E2%80%931968