To Alfred Daniel King
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: August 30, 1962
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Voter registration
Details
In this letter to his brother A. D., King proclaims that a “real mobilization of our civil rights forces” is needed in Alabama and that the state will be the focus of SCLC activity in the coming year.1 “We want to help you to help Alabama,” King writes. King also invites his brother to Birmingham in September for a meeting, which coincides with SCLC’s annual convention.2
Reverend A. D. King
721 12th Street
Birmingham, Alabama
Dear Rev. King:
This is the first opportunity that I have had to express my regret that I could not meet with you in July. Ralph Abernathy and Wyatt Tee Walker were as disappointed as I was that we missed such a heart-warming meeting.3
I am writing to you personally for a two-fold reason. As you know, during this past year, I have devoted a great deal of my time to field work, conducting people to people tours, and recruiting for voter registration and teachers in our Citizenship Education program.4 Our next program this year calls for a real mobilization of our civil rights forces in the State of Alabama. We want to help you to help Alabama.
Through our reciprocal efforts, we can bring a new day in the Deep South and your state.
Secondly, I want to invite you to meet with us for a follow-up meeting on September 25th in Birmingham. We propose a 10:30 A.M. meeting at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. This will provide you with an opportunity to look in on our Annual Convention that begins Tuesday night with a gala Freedom banquet featuring Jackie Robinson.5 We hope that you will bring a carload of representatives from your area.
In a few days we will forward to you some of the details of our Annual Convention in order that you might plan to spend several days with us and “kill two birds with one stone.”
I shall look forward to clasping hands with you on the 25th.
Faithfully yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
MLK/wm
1. King sent out dozens of similar letters to ministers throughout the South, including Birmingham residents Edward Gardner, W. E. Shortridge, Orzell Billingsley, and John Cross (King to Gardner, 31 August 1962; King to Shortridge, Billingsley, and Cross, all dated 4 September 1962).
2. The sixth annual SCLC convention was held at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church from 25–28 September. The conference theme was the “Diversified Attack on Segregation.” According to an SCLC press release, King said Birmingham was chosen as the site for the conference because “it represents the hardcore South, and our affiliate group here has carried on a relentless and sometimes lonely battle for freedom from segregation” (Program, “Annual Meeting of SCLC,” 25 September–28 September 1962; SCLC, Press release, “SCLC sets annual meet in Birmingham,” 22 August 1962). On the second day of the conference, King announced that SCLC would focus on increasing voter registration and desegregating public facilities and universities in Birmingham in 1963 (“State Target of ’63 Mixing, King Declares,” Birmingham News, 26 September 1962). The following day, King was attacked by a member of the American Nazi party as he addressed the conference (Peter Kihss, “Dr. King Assaulted at Meeting by Self-Styled American Nazi,” New York Times, 29 September 1962).
3. King may be referring to a meeting he scheduled for 16 July in Montgomery to discuss integration efforts in Alabama. King’s involvement in the Albany Movement prevented him from attending the meeting in Montgomery (King, Form letter, July 1962; Andrew Young to Friends, 6 July 1962).
4. For more on King’s People to People tours and SCLC’s Citizenship Education Program, see Introduction, pp. 22–23 and 28–29 in this volume.
5. Robinson, Freedom Dinner Address at the Sixth Annual Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 25 September 1962.
Source: MLKJP-GAMK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers (Series I–IV), Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.