Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63

by Taylor Branch

These tensions culminated when “higher elements” among the membership mounted a campaign to remodel the church to face the drier Ripley Street instead of the sloping Columbus, where they were obliged to muddy their shoes on Sundays after a rain. Their proposed renovation, while expensive, would afford cleaner and more dignified access.

“Naturally, I just beamed,” Graetz told Johnson, “because that really fit me.”

something that opened up mysteriously beyond the predicaments of human beings in their frailest and noblest moments.

Before he could say anything, she moved her face close to his and said loudly, “I done told you we is with you all the way. But even if we ain’t with you, God’s gonna take care of you.”

Be good to them. This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love.”

I want it to be known the length and breadth of this land that if I am stopped, this movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we are doing is right. What we are doing is just.

“Remember what I just said,”

On August 25, two or three sticks of dynamite exploded in Reverend Graetz’s front yard, shattering the windows in nearby homes. Graetz returned from out of town to find that the police had confiscated personal records and correspondence from his home as part of the bombing investigation. Detectives promptly interrogated Graetz himself, in a manner that provoked the two-year-old Graetz boy to shout, “Go away, you bad policemen!” The ever-repentant Graetz later confessed to a fleeting surge of pride in his son’s combative spirit.

“we are not afraid, because God is on our side.”

King opened the Institute program on December 3 with an address at the Holt Street Baptist Church, where his speech almost exactly a year earlier had electrified the first mass meeting. He announced that the last year had taught six lessons: “(1) We have discovered that we can stick together for a common cause; (2) Our leaders do not have to sell out; (3) Threats and violence do not necessarily intimidate those who are sufficiently aroused and non-violent; (4) Our church is becoming militant, stressing a social gospel as well as a gospel of personal salvation; (5) We have gained a new sense of dignity and destiny; (6) We have discovered a new and powerful weapon—non-violent resistance.”

“Lord, I hope no one will have to die as a result of our struggle for freedom in Montgomery. Certainly I don’t want to die. But if anyone has to die, let it be me!”

Clare Boothe Luce—the first female ambassador in U.S. history, and wife of Time founder Henry Luce—introduced herself to King in a fan letter that January.