To Alberta Williams King
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: August 30, 1944
Location: Simsbury, Conn.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Family
Details
Responding to a letter in which his mother informed him of his admission to Morehouse, King explains that Claude B. Dansby, the mathematics professor who accompanied the students to Connecticut, will consult with Dean Brailsford R. Brazeal about the registration of those students who were delayed in getting back to Atlanta from Connecticut. Years later King recalled his return to the segregated South: “It was a bitter feeling going back to segregation. It was hard to understand why I could ride wherever I pleased on the train from New York to Washington, and then had to change to a Jim Crow car at the nation’s capitol in order to continue the trip to Atlanta.”1
Dear Mother
I received your letter and was very glad to hear from you.
I was very glad to hear that I can enter Morehouse. I cannot get home until the 15th Because I signed the to leave the 12th and if I leave before the 12th I cannot get my railroad fare and they are also giving us a bonus for about $25.00 if I leave before the 12th I cant get nither of them. I asked Mr. Dansby about entering school late and he said he would see Dean and explain it to him it is a lot of boys here that are entering late. Mr. Dansby is giving some of the boys the Math test here and they wont have to take it when they get there I think I will take it. I will leave here Sept 12 Tues after next and get home the 15thbecause I am stoping in N. York for about a day.
[signed] M. L.
1. Ted Poston, “Fighting Pastor: Martin Luther King,” New York Post, 10 April 1957. See also Coretta Scott King, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 85.
Source: CKFC, INP, Christine King Farris Collection, In Private Hands.