The autobiography of martin luther

In the darkest moments, she always brought the light of hope.

"Segregation must die"

let's not fool ourselves, we haven't reached the promised land, North

or South. We still confront segregation in the South in its glaring and

conspicuous forms. We still confront it in the North in its subtle and

hidden forms. Segregation is still a fact. Now it might be true that old

man segregation is on its deathbed. But history has proven that social

systems have a great last-minute breathing power. And the guardians

of the status-quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep

he old order alive. But if democracy is to live, segregation must die.

The underlying philosophy of democracy is diametrically opposed to the

underlying philosophy of segregation, and all of the dialectics of the

logicians cannot make them lie down together. Segregation is an evil,

segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before

our democratic health can be realized.

There was a time that we attempted to live with segregation. There

were those who felt that we could live by a doctrine of separate hut

equal and so back in 1896, the Supreme Court of this nation through

the Plessy v. Ferguson decision established the doctrine of separate but

equal as the law of the land. But we all know what happened as a result

of that doctrine; there was always a strict enforcement of the separate

without the slightest intention to abide by the equal. And so as a result

of the old Plessy doctrine, we ended up being plunged across the abyss

of exploitation, where we experienced the bleakness of nagging injustice.

But even if it had been possible to provide the Negro with equal

facilities in terms of external construction and quantitative distribution

we would have still confronted inequality. If it had been possible to give

Negro children the same number of schools proportionately and the

same type of buildings as white children, the Negro children would have

still confronted inequality in the sense that they would not have had

the opportunity of communicating with all children. You see, equality

is not only a matter of mathematics and geometry, but it's a matter of

psychology. It's not only a quantitative something but it is a qualitative

something; and it is possible to have quantitative equality and qualita-

tive inequality. The doctrine of separate but equal can never be.

I experienced this the other day. I left Montgomery, Alabama,

Thursday morning, September 27, via Eastern Air Lines en route to

Virginia. In Atlanta I changed from Eastern to Capitol Air Lines. Just

as we were about to take off we discovered that we had generator trou-

ble which necessitated our deplaning and going back in the waiting

room. We were to have lunch on the flight and so while we were waiting

they gave all of us tickets to go in the Dobbs House in the Atlanta

airport and have lunch. I was the only Negro passenger on the plane,

and I followed everybody else going into the Dobbs House to get lunch.

When I got there one of the waiters ushered me back and I thought they

were giving me a very nice comfortable seat with everybody else and I

discovered they were leading me to a compartment in the back. And

this compartment was around you, you were completely closed in, cut

off from everybody else, so I immediately said that I couldn't afford to

eat there. I went on back and took a seat out in the main dining room

with everybody else and I waited there, and nobody served me. I waited

a long time, everybody else was being served. So finally I asked for the

manager and he came out and started talking, and I told him the situa-

tion and he talked in very sympathetic terms. And I never will forget

what he said to me.

He said, "Now Reverend, this is the law; this is the state law and

the city ordinance and we have to do it. We can't serve you out here

but now everything is the same. Everything is equal back there; you will

get the same food; you will be served out of the same dishes and every-

thing else; you will get the same service as everybody out here."

And I looked at him and started wondering if he really believed

that. And I started talking with him. I said, "/ don't see how I can get

the same service. Number one, I confront aesthetic inequality. I can't

see all these beautiful pictures that you have around the walls here. We

don't have them back there. But not only that, I just don't like sitting

back there and it does something to me. It makes me almost angry. I

know that I shouldn't get angry. I know that I shouldn't become bitter,

but when you put me back there something happens to my soul, so that

I confront inequality in the sense that I have a greater potential for the

accumulation of bitterness because you put me back there. And then

not only that, I met a young man from Mobile who was my seat mate,

a white fellow from Mobile, Alabama, and we were discussing some

very interesting things. And when we got in the dining room, if we

followed what you're saying, we would have to he separated. And this

means that I can't communicate with this young man. I am completely

cut off from communication. So I confront inequality on three levels: I

confront aesthetic inequality; I confront inequality in the sense of a

greater potential for the accumulation of bitterness; and I confront in-

equality in the sense that I can't communicate with the person who was

my seat mate."

And I came to see what the Supreme Court meant when they came

out saying that separate facilities are inherently unequal. There is no

such thing as separate hut equal.

"A glorious daybreak"

The battle was not yet won. We would have to walk and sacrifice for

several more months, while the city appealed the case. But at least

we could walk with new hope. Now it was only a matter of time.

The summer days gave way to the shorter cooler days of an Alabama

autumn. The Supreme Court decision on our appeal was still pend-

ing. Meanwhile we were facing continued attempts to block the car

pool. Insurance agents decided, almost overnight, to refuse to insure

our station wagons, contending that the risk was too high. Finally

the company that held our liability insurance notified us that all the

policies would be canceled as of September 15. A Northern friend

who had read of our trouble wrote suggesting that we contact Lloyds

of London. A few days later I talked to T. M. Alexander, an insur-

ance broker in Atlanta, who approved of the idea and agreed to

make the contact for us. In a few days he was able to tell us that

Lloyds of London would take the insurance.

But we were in for even greater difficulties. The city decided to

take legal action against the car pool itself. We tried to block this

maneuver by filing a request in the federal court for an order re-

straining the city from interfering with the pool. But U.S. District

Judge Frank M. Johnson refused to grant the request. Soon several

of us received subpoenas; the city had filed the petition. The hearing

was set for Tuesday, November 13.

The night before the hearing I had to go before the mass meeting

to warn the people that the car pool would probably be enjoined. I

knew that they had willingly suffered for nearly twelve months, but

how could they function at all with the car pool destroyed? Could

we ask them to walk back and forth every day to their jobs? And if

not, would we then be forced to admit that the protest had failed in

the end? For the first time in our long struggle together, I almost

shrank from appearing before them.

The evening came, and I mustered up enough courage to tell

them the truth. I tried, however, to end on a note of hope. "This

may well be," I said, "the darkest hour just before dawn. We have

moved all of these months with the daring faith that God was with

us in our struggle. The many experiences of days gone by have vindi-

cated that faith in a most unexpected manner. We must go out with

the same faith, the same conviction. We must believe that a way will

be made out of no way." But in spite of these words, I could feel the

cold breeze of pessimism passing through the audience. It was a dark

night—darker than a thousand midnights. It was a night in which

the light of hope was about to fade away and the lamp of faith about

to flicker. We went home with nothing before us but a cloud of

uncertainty.

Tuesday morning found us in court, once again before Judge

Carter. The city's petition was directed against the MIA and several

churches and individuals. It asked the court to grant the city com-

pensation for damages growing out of the car pool operation. As

chief defendant I sat at the front table with the prosecuting and

defense attorneys.

Around twelve o'clock—during a brief recess—I noticed unusual

commotion in the courtroom. Both Commissioner Sellers and

Mayor Gayle were called to a back room, followed by two of the city

attorneys. Several reporters moved excitedly in and out of the room.

I turned to my attorneys, Fred Gray and Peter Hall, and said:

"Something is,wrong."

Before I could fully get these words out. Rex Thomas—a reporter

for Associated Press—came up to me with a paper in his hand.

"Here is the decision that you have been waiting for. Read this

release."

Quickly, with a mixture of anxiety and hope, I read these words:

"The United States Supreme Court today affirmed a decision of a

special three-judge U.S. District Court in declaring Alabama's state

and local laws requiring segregation on buses unconstitutional. The

Supreme Court acted without listening to any argument; it simply

said 'the motion to affirm is granted and the judgment is affirmed.' "

At this moment my heart began to throb with an inexpressible

joy. At once I told the news to the attorneys at the table. Then I

rushed to the back of the room to tell my wife, Ralph Abernathy,

and E. D. Nixon. Soon the word had spread to the whole courtroom.

The faces of the Negroes showed that they had heard. "God Al-

rnighty has spoken from Washington, D.C.," said one joyful by-

stander.

and we settled down to the case at hand for the remainder of the

day. About five o'clock both sides rested, and the judge's decision

came in a matter of minutes: As we had all expected, the city was

granted a temporary injunction to halt the motor pool. But the deci-

sion was an anticUmax. Tuesday, November 13, 1956, will always

remain an important and ironic date in the history of the Montgom-

ery bus protest. On that day two historic decisions were rendered—

one to do away with the pool; the other to remove the underlying

conditions that made it necessary. The darkest hour of our struggle

had become the hour of victory. Disappointment, sorrow, and de-

spair are born at midnight, but morning follows.

I rushed home and notified the press that I was calling the Negro

citizens together on Wednesday night, November 14, to decide

whether to call off the protest. In order to accommodate as many

people as possible, two simultaneous meetings were scheduled, one

on each side of town, with the speakers traveling from one meeting

to the other. In the meantime, the executive board decided, on the

advice of counsel, to recommend that the official protest be ended

immediately, but that the return to the buses be delayed until the

mandatory order arrived from the Supreme Court in Washington. It

was expected in a few days.

The eight thousand men and women who crowded in and

around the two churches were in high spirits. At the first meeting it

was clear that the news of the decision had spread fast. Each of the

meetings accepted the recommendations of the executive board to

call off the protest but refrain from riding the buses until the man-

date reached Alabama. It was a glorious daybreak to end a long night

of enforced segregation.

That night the Ku Klux Klan rode. The radio had announced

their plan to demonstrate throughout the Negro community, and

threats of violence and new bombings were in the air. For a short

period during the late summer and early fall, there had been a de-

cline in harassments, but they started again when the Supreme Court

rendered its verdict. The evening after the decision my telephone

rang almost every five minutes. One caller said to me, "If you allow

the niggers to go back to the buses and sit on the front seat, we are

going to burn down more than fifty nigger houses in one night,

including yours." I said to him very calmly that that wasn't the way

to solve the problem. Before I could complete my sentence, he said.

"Shut up your mouth, nigger, or we will come out there and blow

you up right now." Another caller spent his time cursing the Su-

preme Court. He told me that he had evidence that all the Supreme

Court justices were Communists. He closed his bitter statement by

saying: "We are just waiting for that damn Hugo Black to come back

to Alabama, and we are going to hang you and him on the same

tree."

Ordinarily, threats of Klan action were a signal to the Negroes to

lights. Fearing death, they played dead. But this time they had pre-

pared a surprise. When the Klan arrived—according to the newspa-

pers "about forty carloads of robed and hooded members"—porch

lights were on and doors open. As the Klan drove by, the Negroes

behaved as though they were watching a circus parade. Concealing

the effort it cost them, many walked about as usual; some simply

watched from their steps; a few waved at the passing cars. After a

few blocks, the Klan, nonplussed, turned off into a side street and

disappeared into the night.

Meanwhile, we went to work to prepare the people for integrated

buses. In mass meeting after mass meeting we stressed nonviolence.

The prevailing theme was that "we must not take this as a victory

over the white man, but as a victory for justice and democracy." We

hammered away at the point that "we must not go back on the buses

and push people around unnecessarily, boasting of our rights. We

must simply sit where there is a vacant seat."

In spite of all of our efforts to prepare the Negroes for integrated

buses, not a single white group would take the responsibility of pre-

paring the white community. We tried to get the white ministerial

alliance to make a simple statement calling for courtesy and Chris-

tian brotherhood, but in spite of the favorable response of a few

ministers, the majority "dared not get involved in such a controver-

sial issue." This was a deep disappointment.

"Our faith seems to be vindicated"

On December 20, 1956, the bus integration order finally reached

Montgomery. A mass meeting was immediately scheduled for that

evening, to give the people final instructions before returning to the

buses the following day. I called and asked the manager of the bus

company to be sure to have service restored on all of the major lines.

With evident relief, he agreed.

To the overflow crowd at the St. John A.M.E. Church I read the

following message that I had carefully prepared in the afternoon:

These twelve months have not at all been easy. Our feet have often

been tired. We have struggled against tremendous odds to maintain

alternative transportation. There have been moments when roaring wa-

ters of disappointment poured upon us in staggering torrents. We can

remember days when unfavorable court decisions came upon us like

tidal waves, leaving us treading in the deep and confused waters of

despair. But amid all of this we have kept going with the faith that as

we struggle, God struggles with us, and that the arc of the moral uni-

verse, although long, is bending toward justice. We have lived under the

agony and darkness of Good Friday with the conviction that one day

the heightening glow of Easter would emerge on the horizon. We have

seen truth crucified and goodness buried, but we have kept going with

the conviction that truth crushed to earth will rise again.

Now our faith seems to be vindicated. This morning the long

awaited mandate from the United States Supreme Court concerning

bus segregation came to Montgomery. Our experience and growth dur-

ing this past year of united nonviolent protest has been of such that we

cannot be satisfied with a court ''victory" over our white brothers. We

must respond to the decision with an understanding of those who have

oppressed us and with an appreciation of the new adjustments that the

court order poses for them. We must be able to face up honestly to our

own shortcomings. We must act in such a way as to make possible a

coming together of white people and colored people on the basis of a

real harmony of interests and understanding. We seek an integration

based on mutual respect.

This is the time that we must evince calm dignity and wise restraint.

Emotions must not run wild. Violence must not come from any of us,

for if we become victimized with violent intents, we will have walked in

vain, and our twelve months of glorious dignity will be transformed

into an eve of gloomy catastrophe. As we go back to the buses let us be

loving enough to turn an enemy into a friend. We must now move from

protest to reconciliation. It is my firm conviction that God is working

in Montgomery. Let all men of goodwill, both Negro and white, con-

time to work with Him. With this dedication we will he able to emerge

from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man to

the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

The audience stood and cheered loudly. This was the moment

toward which they had pressed for more than a year. The return to

the buses, on an integrated basis, was a new beginning. But it was a

conclusion too, the end of an effort that had drawn Montgomery's

Negroes together as never before. It had been gratifying to know

how the idea of nonviolence had gradually seeped into the hearts

and souls of the people. There had been an amazing amount of disci-

pline on the part of our people. I felt that the whole struggle had

given the Negro a new sense of dignity and destiny. To many of

those present the joy was not unmixed. Some perhaps feared what

might happen when they began to ride the buses again the next day.

Others had found a spiritual strength in sacrifice to a cause; now the

sacrifice was no longer necessary. Like many consummations, this

one left a slight aftertaste of sadness.

I had decided that after many months of struggling with my peo-

ple for the goal pf justice I should not sit back and watch, but should

lead them back to the buses myself I asked Ralph Abernathy, E. D.

Nixon, and Glenn Smiley to join me in riding on the first integrated

bus. They reached my house around 5:45 on Friday morning. Televi-

sion cameras, photographers, and news reporters were hovering out-

side the door. At 5:55 we walked toward the bus stop, the cameras

shooting, the reporters bombarding us with questions. Soon the bus

appeared; the door opened, and I stepped on. The bus driver greeted

me with a cordial smile. As I put my fare in the box he said:

"I beheve you are Reverend King, aren't you?"

I answered: "Yes I am."

"We are glad to have you this morning," he said.

I thanked him and took my seat, smiling now too. Abernathy,

Nixon, and Smiley followed, with several reporters and television

men behind them. Glenn Smiley sat next to me. So I rode the first

integrated bus in Montgomery with a white minister, and a native

Somherner, as my seat mate.

Downtown we transferred to one of the buses that serviced the

white residential section. As the white people boarded, many took

seats as if nothing were going on. Others looked amazed to see Ne-

groes sitting in front, and some appeared peeved to Imow that they

either had to sit behind Negroes or stand. One elderly man stood up

by the conductor, despite the fact that there were several vacant seats

in the rear. When someone suggested to him that he sit in back, he

responded: "I would rather die and go to hell than sit behind a

nigger." A white woman unknowingly took a seat by a Negro. When

she noticed her neighbor, she jumped up and said in a tone of obvi-

ous anger: "What are these niggers gonna do next?"

But despite such signs of hostility there were no major incidents

on the first day. Many of the whites responded to the new system

calmly. Several deliberately and with friendly smiles took seats beside

Negroes. True, one Negro woman was slapped by a white man as

she alighted, but she refused to retaliate. Later she said: "I could

have broken that little fellow's neck all by myself, but I left the mass

meeting last night determined to do what Reverend King asked."

The Montgomery Advertiser reported at the end of the first day: "The

calm but cautious acceptance of this significant change in Mont-

gomery's way of hfe came without any major disturbance."

"A courageous new Negro"

Montgomery marked the first flash of organized, sustained, mass

action and nonviolent revolt against the Southern way of life. In

Montgomery, there emerged courageous and collective challenge to

and protest against the American order, which promised so much

for all, while perpetuating indignities and brutalities on the op-

pressed minority.

Montgomery marked the psychological turning point for the

American Negro in his struggle against segregation. The revolution

birthed in Montgomery was unlike the isolated, ftitile, and violent

slave revolts. It was also unlike the many sporadic incidents of revolt

against segregation by individuals, resisting in their own way the

forces of oppression pinning them down. In Montgomery, all across

the board, at one and the same time, the rank and file rose up and

revolted, by refusing to ride the buses. By walking instead, and by

brilliant use of car pools and improvising, the boycotters sustained

their revolt all the way to victory.