An Easter of Anxiety--Along With Hope, Redemption

Over the years I’ve had a pretty good attendance record at Easter worship services. The most meaningful Easter holiday that I remember, though, was the time that I missed church.

On Good Friday, April 12, 1963, my husband, Martin Luther King Jr., disobeyed, for the first time, a state court injunction against demonstrations and led a nonviolent march protesting segregation and discrimination in Birmingham, Ala., where the civil-rights movement had launched a massive citywide demonstration in its most important campaign to date. He felt that he had no choice, for the rights of free speech and assembly were being abridged.

“We could not in good conscience obey (the court’s) mandate,” he said.

More than 500 protesters had already been arrested in demonstrations during the Birmingham campaign, and about 300 were still in jail. To discourage further protests, the city notified the bail bondsman whom we were using that his assets were no longer sufficient. Now we had to post cash to secure the release of those held.

Some of his aides wanted Martin to postpone his arrest until the bail problem could be resolved. After much prayerful deliberation, he decided to lead the march. “I’ve decided to take a leap of faith . . . . I’m going today,” he said, and he was arrested shortly thereafter.

Back in Atlanta I waited anxiously to hear from him, already exhausted from a grueling day with four active children, including our 2-week-old daughter, Bernice. But the call didn’t come Friday--or Saturday, either.

Martin’s brother, the Rev. A. D. King, led a march to the city jail to pray for his brother, and he was also arrested. In desperation I called one of my husband’s aides, the Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, in Birmingham on Easter Sunday. “I haven’t been able to get a phone message through to Martin,” he told me. “They are not even allowing his lawyers to see him now.” Later Martin would write that his hours in solitary confinement were “the longest, most frustrating and bewildering hours I have lived.”

At Wyatt’s suggestion I decided to call President John F. Kennedy. He was out of town, but I was able to reach White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, who assured me that he would try to reach the President.

Later, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy called and asked what he could do to help. I explained the situation to him, emphasizing that I was not trying to get my husband out of jail, because I knew that he would not want that. I was concerned about his safety, and needed to know that he was all right. He promised to look into it and call me back.

It wasn’t until the next day, however, that I heard anything more. The phone rang, and when I picked it up I heard my 2-year-old son, Dexter, babbling happily on the other line. After I got him off the phone, President Kennedy came on. We exchanged greetings and then he said, “We sent the FBI into Birmingham last night. We checked on your husband, and he’s all right. I want you to know we are doing everything we can. I have just talked to Birmingham, and your husband will be calling you shortly. If you have any further worries . . . I want you to feel free to call me . . . . You know how to get me now.”

Martin called within 15 minutes. After he assured me that he was OK, I told him about my conversation with the President.

“So that’s why everybody is suddenly being so polite,” he said, referring to his jailers’ new concern for his comfort, including the provision of a pillow and mattress instead of the steel springs that he had been forced to sleep on.

Martin’s lawyer was allowed to see him, bringing good news that Harry Belafonte had once again saved the day, raising more than $50,000 for the demonstrators. My husband was released eight days after his arrest, but not before he wrote and smuggled out his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” a passionate and compelling plea for support for the struggle against racism. It is now considered one of the great classics of protest literature.

I believe that President Kennedy’s intervention heartened the movement and gave new momentum to the Birmingham struggle. Through television, the Birmingham demonstrations brought the brutality of racism into millions of homes for the first time, and helped galvanize Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1964.

It was an Easter season not without anxiety, but one that brought a joyous reaffirmation of the Christian tenet that unearned suffering can indeed be redemptive.