The Measure of A Man – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Education of a phenomenal man -  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.  Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

I was nine years old before the Civil Rights became real to me after seeing pictures of people knocked down to the ground with fire hoses and dogs dragging them and nipping at their legs.  I felt sad to see only Black people treated that way for standing up equal rights and equal treatment.

By the time Dr. King was nine years old he had already been skipped ahead in school because he started the first grade at age four when his sister was entering the same grade at age six.  Throughout his education, Dr. King was exposed to the influences of Christian theology and how it impacted the struggles of oppressed people.

At Morehouse, Crozer, and Boston University, he studied the teachings on nonviolent protest of Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi.

King also read and heard the sermons of white Protestant ministers who preached against American racism. Benjamin E. Mays, president of Morehouse and a leader in the national community became vitally  important in shaping Dr. King’s theological development.

In looking at the first 23 years of his life before he married Corretta Scott at age 24, ask yourself what have you been doing with your education.

•    Age One
o    When he was only a year old his father received his undergraduate degree in Theology from Morehouse College in 1930
•    Age 2
o    His maternal grandfather AD Williams dies of a heart attack
•    Age 3
o    Started nursery school at age 3 in 1932 (rare in that time period)
•    Age 4
o    1933 King, Jr., enters the first grade at Yonge Street Elementary School with his six-year-old sister, Christine.
•    Age 5
o    1934 King, Jr., reveals to his first-grade teacher that he is only five years old and is expelled from school.
•    Age 6
o    1935 King, Jr., reenters the first grade at Yonge Street Elementary School and after half a year advances to the second grade
o    1936 King, Jr., is baptized after Ebenezer’s two-week annual revival, led by guest evangelist Rev. H. H. Coleman of Macedonia Baptist Church in Detroit.
o    1936 King, Jr., enters the third grade at Atlanta’s David T. Howard Colored Elementary School
•    Age 7
o    1937 King, Jr., enters the fourth grade at Howard Elementary School.
•    Age 8
o    1938 King, Jr., enters the fifth grade at Howard Elementary School.
•   Age 9
o    1939 King, Jr., enters the sixth grade at Howard Elementary School.
o    1939 King, Jr., and members of Ebenezer’s choir sing at the Junior League gala ball celebrating the premiere of Gone with the Wind at Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta
•    Age 10
o    1940 King, Jr., graduates from Howard Elementary School.
o    1940 King, Jr., enters the seventh grade at Atlanta University Laboratory School.
•    Age 11
o    1941 The King family moves from 501 Auburn Avenue to 193 Boulevard.
•    Age 13
o    1942  King, Jr., becomes the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal.
o    1942 January After half a year in the eighth grade at Atlanta University Laboratory School, King, Jr., enrolls in the ninth grade.
o    1942 September King, Jr., enters the tenth grade at Booker T. Washington High School.
•    Age 14
o    1943  September King, Jr., enters the eleventh grade at Booker T. Washington High School.
•    Age 15
o    1944 April King, Jr., wins the right to represent Booker T. Washington High School in the state competition of the Elks’ oratorical contest.
o    1944  April – King travels to Dublin, Georgia, to deliver his oration “The Negro and the Constitution.” Although he does not win the contest, his speech is later printed in the Booker T. Washington High School yearbook, The Cornellian.
o    1944 Summer King, Jr., participates in a summer work program for Morehouse students, picking tobacco on a farm in Simsbury, Connecticut. At the end of the summer, King, Jr., is admitted to Morehouse College as an early admissions student.
o    1944 September King begins his freshman year at Morehouse, taking Freshman Mathematics, Church History, Composition and Reading, History of Civilization, and Introduction to Biology.
•    Age 16
o    1945 September King, Jr., accompanies King, Sr., as he leads the Atlanta delegation to the National Baptist Convention in Detroit
o    1945 King, Jr., begins his sophomore year at Morehouse, taking Elementary French, Introduction to General Literature, Introduction to Sociology, Matter and Energy, General Psychology, and Educational Psychology.
•    Age 17
o    1946 As a sophomore at Morehouse, King, Jr., wins second prize in the John L. Webb Oratorical Contest.
o    1946 Summer King, Jr., quits his job as a laborer at the Atlanta Railway Express Company when a white foreman calls him “nigger.”
o    1946 September King, Jr., begins his junior year at Morehouse; his courses include Shakespeare, the Bible, American Literature, Intermediate French, Contemporary Social Trends, Social Anthropology, and a seminar in Sociology.
•    Age 18
o    1947 Jan/Feb King, Jr.’s article, “The Purpose of Education” is published in the Morehouse student paper, the Maroon Tiger.
o    1947 March King, Jr., is elected chair of the membership committee of the Atlanta NAACP Youth Council in a meeting on the Morehouse College campus.
o    1947 Summer King, Jr., works on a tobacco farm in Simsbury, Connecticut.
o    1947 September King, Jr., begins his senior year at Morehouse College, enrolling in Social Psychology, Classics in English, Social Institutions, Social Legislation, Urban Sociology, Intercultural Relations, Introduction to Philosophy, Principles and Methods of Statistics, and a seminar in Sociology.
o    Fall 1947 King, Jr., preaches a trial sermon at Ebenezer.
•    Age 19
o    1948 King, Jr., wins second prize in the John L. Webb Oratorical Contest.
o    1948 February King, Jr., offers the prayer at graveside memorial services for former Morehouse College presidents John Hope and Samuel H. Archer.
o    1948 February King, Jr., is ordained and appointed assistant pastor at Ebenezer.
o    1948 King, Jr., accepts Crozer’s offer of admission.
o    1948 April King, Jr., preaches “Life is What You Make It” in the morning and “The Meaning of Christian Living” in the evening at Liberty Baptist Church in Atlanta.
o    June 1948 King, Jr., receives his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Morehouse and Christine King receives her bachelor of arts degree in economics from Spelman College. Age 19
o    Summer 1948 King, Jr., serves as assistant pastor of Ebenezer.
o    July 1948 King, Jr., is guest speaker at a meeting of the Negro Cultural League at Ebenezer.
o    August 1948 King, Jr., delivers sermon at Ebenezer’s evening service on “External Versus Internal Religion.”
o    August 1948 King, Jr., preaches at Ebenezer’s morning service on “God’s Kingdom First.”
o    September 1948 During the first term of his first year at Crozer Theological Seminary, King takes Public Speaking, Preaching Ministry of the Church, Introduction to the Old Testament, Orientation for Juniors, Choir, and Church Music.
•    Age 20
o    February 1949 King, Jr., is enrolled in Christian Mysticism, Practice Preaching, and Public Speaking.
•   Age 21
o    September 1950 King, Jr., enters his senior year at Crozer, taking courses on American Christianity–Colonial Period, Minister’s Use of the Radio, and Religious Development of Personality. He serves as student pastor at the First Baptist Church in Queens, New York.
•   Age 22
o    September 1951 King, Jr., audits courses on the Problems of Esthetics and Kant at the University of Pennsylvania.
o    February 1951 King, Jr., enrolls in Philosophy of Religion and Theological Integration at Crozer.
o    December Nov 1950/ Feb 1951  King, Jr., is accepted as a student in the Post-Graduate School of the Faculty of Divinity at Edinburgh University, Scotland.
o    January 1951 King, Jr., is accepted as a student in the Post-Graduate School of the Faculty of Divinity at Edinburgh University, Scotland.
o    Feb 1951 King, Jr., takes the Graduate Record Examination.
o    Feb – May 1951 King, Jr., is enrolled in Advanced Philosophy of Religion, Christian Social Philosophy, and Christianity and Society.
o    May 1951 King, Jr., graduates from Crozer with a bachelor of divinity degree, delivering the valedictory address at commencement. He receives both the Pearl Plafker Memorial Award as the graduating student who, “in the judgment of the faculty, has been the outstanding member of his class during his course in the seminary,” and the J. Lewis Crozer Fellowship, which provides $1,200 toward graduate school.

In the next decade Dr. King meets Correct Scott and gets married at the age of 24, then become the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Civil Rights Movement took hold and American was swept up in protest against segreation, lynchings, bombings, the assassinations of Medgar Evers, President John F. Kennedy, Malcom X , more riots and violence leading up to his death.

The time line continues with from age 24 up to today when we celebrate the installation of the man we call Barack Obama to continue the legacy. We shall struggle no more.“Give Us The Ballot.”

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Black Women in Television and Film, grace in the face of discrimination

When I was fourteen, I traveled to North Carolina with my mother to her home town in Greensboro and experienced a kind of racism that gave me a serious wake up call about discrimination. I was angry, confused and hurt that we could have been arrested just for shopping like normal people and the experience affects me still today. This was in 1968, the same year that Martin Luther King Jr, was murdered, and I felt strong in my Blackness due to the achievements of the Civil Rights movement taking place up to and during this time. In this Five and Dime discount store, as I browsed and touched things I was followed by a white clerk and warned by my mother to not put the hat I was looking at on my head.

Defiant, fourteen and  coming from Ohio where white people were a little more subtle about their racist attitudes, I felt the injustice of that moment and we left the store before I caused us to get arrested. Outside the store I decided to get a drink of water from the public fountain until I noticed the fountains were separately marked “Whites” and “coloreds”. The white fountain was chilled with electricity but the Colored fountain was a small porcelain fountain with warm water.  This was traumatic to my young revolutionary Spirit, which had been slowly getting stronger and developing as I learned more about myself in a climate of social injustice.  The  examples of self pride and strength were the people in my family and the community around me, both the men and women who raised me taught me to be proud of who I am as an African American.

African American women in my formative years were portrayed in low profile parts that did not stand out. Influenced by the traditionalist of the 50’s the images we saw on television and in the movies consisted of Black women as a vixen, a housekeeper, a maid, or mammy and as slaves or bare-breasted indigenous women in Tarzan movies.

Fortunately the women in my life were strong, educated and challenged those stereotypes for a little black girl to seek out other definitions of my womanhood. Early television and film images of women of color were censored representations of talented actors that were held back due to racism. Artists like Nina Mae McKinney, Fredi Washington, Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne broke through the barriers of the industry to make it possible for us to witness the talent of today.

Consistently, Black women showed up in roles as caretakers and servants of their white counterparts because the white actors could not be upstaged. Many blacks had to reject their own blackness and compromise the creative integrity of their skills as actresses because the images they were allowed to portray was controlled by the studios bosses who in that era were white.

Nina Mae McKinney, (b.1912 – d.1967) was the first Black movie star and actress in Hollywood, but we know nothing about her. All of the attention has been given to the choices of the industry as the front runners.

Fredi Washington, (b.1903-d.1994) a very fair-skinned woman with light eyes, was disliked by both blacks and whites even though she was actually a black woman. Because she didn’t look black enough, Hollywood directors often encouraged her to pass for white because they could make her a bigger star. The role that was most significant was the movie “Imitation of Life” in which she played a black woman passing for white.

Dorothy Dandridge, ( b.1924 – d.1965) appeared in movies from 1930 to the end of 1962 was born during the Depression Era in America, was the first Black actress ever nominated for and an Academy Award for Carmen Jones in 1954.

Although we did not have cable during that time, movies and television were a prominent channel of entertainment and a powerful method of influence on the belief system of Black people. Representing your race during the 1950’s and 1960’s was extremely significant to black actors due to how racism was reflected and reinforced on television and on the big screen.

The November issue of Ebony Magazine features the stars of the movie coming out this month called “The Secret Life Of Bees” in an article by Lynn Norment discussing how the actresses connected the past events of the Civil Rights struggle with American history today. This is the reason this magazine is about connection, because it is through connection that we learn to broaden our frame of understanding about life. Connection to the accomplishments of our predecessors is the key to making sense of the historic events taking place today. It is important that we are aware of our history and the role of the individuals whose determination and tenacity opened the door for us in television and film to express ourselves in the many ways we do today.

During the shooting of the movie, the director Gina Prince-Blythwood chose to immerse two two of the actresses in a real life situation of racism to sensitize them about the climate of the times. The story takes place in 1964 during a time of openly demonstrated racial and social hatred. Exposing the actors to this experience allowed them to feel actual discrimination. No one can describe it to you and give an accurate account of how it deeply it hurts. I felt completely stripped as a part of me wanted to fight and another part of me wanted to cry out loud when I was fourteen in that North Carolina store 40 years ago. Today the same attitudes show up every day in the media. There is so much social injustice today, we still have a lot of work to do yet I am grateful for movies like this to show us the today the connection to the past and the present.

I am also grateful to the women of color who were brave enough to not give up or give in being told they were not good enough or talented enough to represent their race. The grace and determination they demonstrated is the strength that fuels and motivates us today. Gives Thanks for the ancestors on whose shoulders we stand, Ashe’, Ashe’, Ashe’.

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