One's Call Often Changes throughout Life: MLK Moves

On November 13, 1956, the US Supreme Court declared bus segregation laws unconstitutional and on December 21 the MIA voted to end the boycott.  Martin Luther King, Jr. walked out of the front door of the parsonage and was one of the first passengers to ride the desegregated buses.

Martin and David Abernathy began to talk about the need to form a new organization that would work to implement the Supreme Court decision throughout the South by nonviolent means. The first discussions were held around this parsonage dining table (Martin seen here with daughter, Yolanda), and the official decision to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference came at Atlanta on February 14, 1957, with Martin elected as president.

Throughout this time Martin was working on his first book, about the Montgomery bus boycott, titled Stride toward Freedom. He finished the book in 1958 and on September 20 did a book signing at a Harlem department store.  A "demented black woman," as Martin would put it, entered the store and plunged a letter opener into his chest. It stopped just short of his aorta and he was told later by his doctor that if he had sneezed, he probably would have died.

That fact came out the next morning in the New York Times. Shortly thereafter Martin received a letter from a ninth grade white girl from White Plains High School. Many times thereafter he liked to quote the last line of her letter to him. "I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."

With all of these events Martin was becoming more and more known throughout the world. On February 18, 1957 his picture appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.

He kept receiving invitations to speak all around the country, and eventually the world.

Martin struggled to fulfill all of these commitments and still faithfully serve the members of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. In his latter years there in his annual reports to the congregation he would talk about the guilt he felt at being away from his congregation so much.

Throughout life, whatever our particular calling is at that time, we struggle to know how long to stay in a particular calling, and when it may be time to change. This happened to Martin at Dexter.  Not only did he feel he was not adequately fulfilling his call there, but he longed for more time to read, write, reflect, pray, and provide leadership to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Finally, in early 1960, Martin resigned his call to Dexter, and he and his family moved to Atlanta. He became co-pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church with his Father, who promised that in that position he would have more time for his work outside the parish and as president of the SCLC.