King: 'Still The Man Negroes Trust'
Author's note: My interview
with Mrs. King was held on
Saturday, November 4, 1967, in
Atlanta, Georgia; at the time, a
welcome-home reception was in
progress, as Martin Luther King
had just been released frsoi the
Birmingham jail.
By Mrs. Martin Luther King
as told to:
Marie S. Nahikian
My husband is still
overwhelmingly the man to
Marie Nahikian, CARY feature
editor, who visited Atlanta and
interviewed Mrs. King.
wheal the Negro looks to and
trusts.
My husband's role has been a
very significant one. The position he has taken is the right one
and the one that jwil'l win.
The term Black People is
misrepresentatife. We believe
not in black or white, but in the
power of the people. Yet, the
Negro is deprived of all power,
politically and economically.
The Negro has become bitter
and impatient with the conditions of society.
In 1955, there were a series of
direct abuses to the Negro. The
NiAAIGP was outlawed in
Alabama, there was bus
segregation in Montyomery. As
a result we organized the bus
(boycotts in Montgomery, which
were the first non-violent reaction to these abuses.
In 1(957, we formed the
'Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), and my
husband was elected president.
In 1960, he was jailed with the
students in Atlanta Which
resulted in the desegregation of
some restaurants and lunch
counters. These demonstrations
made the Negro aware of his
deprivations.
About six months prior to the
demonstrations that led to Dr.
King's arrest, he was arrested
just outside Emory University
for a traffic violation.
It seems that in ^moving from
Alabama to Georgia, we had
failed to transfer tags and
license tags. As a result of this
encounter, he was placed on a
six^months suspended sentence,
of which our lawyer never informed us. Therefore, when Dr.
King was arrested in Atlanta in
1960, he was kept in jail several
days after the students had been
freed, without bond, for violating
this probation.
At this time I was carrying
my third child, and was deeply
troubled by the fact that we had
been able to do very little about
getting my husband out of jail.
At the time John F. Kennedy
was contending for the
Democratic nomination for
President, and 1 answered the
phone one night to find Mr. Kennedy on the other end. He expressed a deep concern for our
situation and offered to help us
in any way possible. I told him
that we would be deeply aip-
preciative of anything he could
do for us.
The next morning I went down
to the Atlanta jail, only to find
that my husband had been moved at 4 a.m. that morning to the
Reidsville State Penitentiary. It
was several days later that he
was released, through the aid of
one of Mr. Kennedy's
Democratic advisers.
At this time we had made no
decision about our support for
the 1960 presidential campaign.
We had been very much impressed with Richard Mxon and
he had expressed concern for
our cause. YeJ;, we did make the
decision to support JFK in the
1960 presidential race. I can only
feel, if history is ever written
correctly, that our decision to
support John F. Kennedy was
responsible for his election in
1960 by such a small majority.
iEarly in 1963, my husband,
along with several other Civil
Rights leaders, went to the
White House to talk with President Kennedy about possible
Civil Rights legislation for the
upcoming Congress. We were
told at that time that there was
no ,plan for any type of legislation, as he (JFK) had several
domestic programs that he was
interested in seeing pushed
through.
My husband came home, and
after deliberation about the
situation, we saw no other
choice but to go through with
our plans for a m a s s i v e
demonstration.
At this time we pushed the
massive Birmingham
d e monstrations. Birmingham
was one of the worst racially
segregated cities at this time,
and it was an obvious place for
us to begin. As a result some
public accommodations were
willingly desegregated. W e
received great sympathy as a
result of the fire hoses and dogs
that were turned on the
demonstrators in that Good Friday march of 1963.
I feel that Civil Rights legislation came as a result of these
demonstrations. It was only
after the legislation had been
drafted that we planned the
250,000 march on Washington in
the summer of 1964, after which
passage of the 1 e g i s 1 a t i o n
came.
The Nobel Prize was a great
responsibility on his shoulders
and is something he must live
up to the rest of his life. It put
Civil Rights in a new international position. The prize
was a sj'-aibol of hopes and
aspirations for the colored
population outside the U.S. We
could feel and identity with the
world movement.
