To Aurelia Sheller
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: January 30, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
After hearing reports of King’s contribution to John F. Kennedy’s narrow victory over Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, Sheller, a homemaker from Mineral Ridge, Ohio, suggested that King had been manipulated by the Kennedy family and the Vatican.1 As he had done several times before, King denied endorsing either presidential candidate, claiming that the “price that one has to pay for being in public life is that of being misquoted, misrepresented and misunderstood.”2 King closes by thanking Sheller for her thoughtful remarks about his work and acknowledging that he struggles “all the time to make the ideals of freedom and justice a reality and I constantly pray that my motives will be pure and my means moral in the process.”
Mrs. Frank Skeller
R.R. Box 282
Mineral Ridge, Ohio
Dear Mrs. Skeller:
I am in receipt of your letter concerning the presidential election, my arrest, and the general political implications. I am very sorry that you got the impression that I supported Senator Kennedy in the campaign. The fact is that I made it palpably clear in a press conference immediately after my release from psison that I would endorse neither candidate. I took this position in order to maintain a non-partisan posture which I have followed all along. I said in that press conference that it was necessary for me to take a non-partisan position in order to be able to look objectively at both parties at all times.
As you well know, the price that one has to pay for being in public life is that of being misquoted, misrepresented and misunderstood. I have tried to condition muself to this inevitable situation. It is possible that you read that my father switched his vote from Nixon to Kennedy after the telephone call.3 This was quite true and again my father has a right to make his own individual decisions and this is not to be represented as the decision of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am deeply grateful to you for your kind words concerning my work. I can only say that I am struggling all the time to make the ideals of freedom and justice a reality and I constantly pray that my motives will be pure and my means moral in the process.
Enclosed is the press release which was given at the press conference immediately after my arrest.
Sincerely yours
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
Encls
Dictated by Dr King but signed in his absence.
1. Sheller called King a “wonderful spiritual leader” and argued that King was “great, and accomplished more” for blacks when he was “going it alone” (Sheller to King, 27 December 1960). While taking part in a sit-in on 19 October 1960, King, who was on probation for a previous traffic violation, was arrested and sentenced to four months at Georgia State Prison at Reidsville. Then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy phoned Coretta Scott King to express his concern for King’s jailing, while Robert F. Kennedy called Georgia governor S. Ernest Vandiver and DeKalb County judge J. Oscar Mitchell to secure King’s release. The Kennedy campaign immediately began outreach in black communities all over the country, contrasting Kennedy’s concern for King with Nixon’s silence. The press speculated that the “King episode” may have accounted for the senator’s slim margin of victory (Anthony Lewis, “Negro Vote Held Vital To Kennedy: Dramatic Shift in South—Senator Widens Margins Scored by Stevenson,” New York Times, 27 November 1960). For more on King’s arrest and its impact on the 1960 presidential election, see Introduction in Papers 5:36–40. Aurelia Sheller (1921–2006), born in Mineral Ridge, Ohio, graduated from high school in 1939. She worked as a beautician and in a factory before becoming a homemaker.
2. After King’s release from Reidsville, he told reporters that he owed a great deal of gratitude to Senator Kennedy but refused to endorse him (King, Interview after Release from Georgia State Prison at Reidsville, 27 October 1960, and King, Statement on Presidential Endorsement, 1 November 1960, in Papers 5:535–536 and 537, 540, respectively).
3. King, Sr. had planned to vote for Richard Nixon given John F. Kennedy’s Catholic faith. After Kennedy made the call to Coretta, King, Sr. reportedly announced his support for Kennedy at a mass meeting celebrating his son’s release: “I’ve got all my votes, and I’ve got a suitcase, and I’m going to take them up there and dump them in his lap” (Margaret Shannon and Douglas Kiker, “Out on Bond, King to Name Choice,” Atlanta Journal, 28 October 1960).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.