From Charles C. Diggs
Author: Diggs, Charles C.
Date: November 6, 1961
Location: Washington, D.C.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
Acknowledging that King does not endorse political candidates “except to urge people to exercise their privilege of voting,” Diggs, an early supporter of the Montgomery bus boycott and an SCLC advisory board member, thanks King for showing “abiding interest” in the unsuccessful campaign of African American candidate Russell Brown for Michigan’s First Congressional District seat.1 King had denied endorsing Brown in late October, after Michigan governor John Swainson called for the Fair Campaign Practices Commission to investigate whether King had made a racially based endorsement.2 No reply from King has been found.
The Reverend Martin Luther King
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Atlanta, Georgia
Dear Martin:
I presume you know by now that the Brown for Congress Campaign missed its objective by less than a thousand votes. The final results dramatized our contention that we had all the ingredients of an historical achievement. We had predicted that if we failed it would be due to apathy and division among our sources of strength.3 We had just enough of both, but much less of each factor to encourage us to believe our efforts were not in vain. Although the other two Negro candidates had no substantial support, they drained off enough votes from Russell Brown to prevent certain victory.4 This experience served as a classical object lesson that will be permanently remembered by many people.
Some elements in the community, principally the daily press have attempted to distort the motivation behind my personal participation in the campaign and the implications of a letter sent to registered voters over my signature accompanied by a circular we published containing the picture we took with you along with certain supporting statements. The fact that Brown’s race was referred to was interpreted by them as a “racist” appeal. In my opinion, which is shared by almost everyone in the so-called Negro community, such an interpretation was so completely distorted that it obviously was designed to serve the nefarious purposes of its perpetrators. They were undoubtedly attempting to galvanize and alert the anti-Negro elements in that district to overcome the manifest growing unity behind Russell Brown’s candidacy.5
I am proud of the campaign we conducted. There was only one issue—who was the best qualified candidate in terms of background, experience and temperament to represent such a diversified district in the Congress of the United States.6
We contended it was Russell Brown, a member of one of America’s most accomplished Negro families.7 What was wrong with identifying his race? The newspapers themselves did it in every story they printed about the campaign. This is the way they also identify me, you and others I could name. We constantly ask Negroes to vote for “other” candidates; what was wrong with asking them to vote for Brown if we thought he was capable of doing the job?
Additionally, you and I both know how under-represented we are at every level of government. Until we reach some level of fair representation from our group we have to focus particular attention on qualified “Negro” candidates whenever certain opportunities present themselves. We cannot always rely upon others to discover the capacity of our talented people to serve their government. Within this context it is certainly legitimate to appeal to the pride of our people to help stimulate their interest in group achievement. To call this “racism” or “discrimination” in reverse is ridiculous. On the contrary if Brown had won, his victory would have been heralded in the daily press and through the Voice of America as a great expression of democracy at work.
I know you do not as a general rule become involved in politics except to urge people to exercise their privilege of voting. I certainly respect and understand this policy in light of the particular leadership role you play. We were very delighted, however, that your policy was flexible enough to have expressed such obviously abiding interest in our candidate’s success when we took that picture during your last visit to Detroit. I think we handled the publicity about your interest with the kind of taste befitting a person of your stature. It was certainly inspirational to those of us who worked so hard for our common cause. Its effectiveness can be gauged by the reaction of the daily press who was opposed to us anyway and sought to seize upon any turn of events to thwart our efforts. However, their attacks upon the King-Diggs “intervention” merely angered the Negro community and raised our stock in its eyesight for fighting for a valid principle.
I am not surprised that you were discerning enough not to have been drawn into commenting upon references to you with respect to this matter. Whatever you might say would be distorted by our detractors in the same degree as their original interpretation. The situation is over; let our common enemies worry about where we might “strike” next.
With best wishes and warmest regards to you and family, I remain
Faithfully yours
[signed]
Charley
1. King visited Detroit on 8 October to speak at New Calvary Baptist Church. While in Detroit King stated that more African American congressmen were needed: “If I were a resident of Detroit and lived in the First District, I would be waiting for the polls to open to vote for Russell S. Brown” (“Diggs Endorses Brown,” Michigan Chronicle, 14 October 1961). Brown, a former state parole agent and bail bondsman who had run for the First District seat in 1958 and 1960, was one of nine Democrats running for Congressman Thaddeus M. Machrowicz’s vacant seat. Diggs, who served in Congress from 1954–1980, had sent a form letter to local leaders endorsing Brown because he was “not only the best qualified of ALL the candidates but is the ONLY NEGRO CANDIDATE WHO HAS A CHANCE TO WIN” (Diggs to Reverend, 9 October 1961). For more on King’s relationship with Diggs, see Diggs to King, 20 April 1956, in Papers 3:218; King to Diggs, 6 January 1958.
2. In its report, the commission stated, “Mr. King has advised us that he never endorses a local candidate,” although Diggs asserted publicly that King was aware that his quote would be printed on literature distributed by the Brown campaign. According to the commission, King’s alleged endorsements were “direct appeals to racial emotions” and “an affront … to our concepts of the dignity and goals of American democracy” (“Prosecution Hinted in Quiz on Bias in Congress Race,” Detroit News, 28 October 1961; Glenn Engle, “State Charges Bias in 1st District Vote,” Detroit News, 27 October 1961). In a letter to Detroit resident Georgia Harris, King rejected the claim that he had made an endorsement: “I had a picture taken with Congressman Diggs and Mr. Brown, as I do with many people, and I had no idea what the picture would be used for. Being a public figure, however, I have accepted the fact that I will constantly be misused, misrepresented, and misunderstood” (King to Harris, 2 November 1961; “Diggs, King Push Brown for Congress,” Michigan Chronicle, 14 October 1961).
3. Diggs to Fellow Voter, October 1961: “IF OUR CANDIDATE LOSES, IT WILL BE BECAUSE YOU OR OTHERS STAYED AT HOME. Our opposition is depending upon our APATHY and DIVISION to defeat us.”
4. Brown placed second in the primary, receiving 9,015 votes to Lucien N. Nedzi’s 10,063 votes. The other three African American candidates, W. Venoid Banks, James Bradley, and J. Alexander Burchett, received 3,140, 2,446, and 146 votes, respectively, out of over forty thousand cast.
5. Brown claimed that King’s support was not “solely because I was a Negro,” but because “he felt I was more suited for the office. My being a Negro was coincidental to this fact” (“Await Decision in Probe of Racism in 1st District,” Michigan Chronicle, 4 November 1961).
6. African Americans comprised forty percent, voters of Polish descent comprised about thirty percent, and other white ethnic groups comprised the rest of the voting population of the First Congressional District, which contained the east side of Detroit and nearby Hamtramck, an industrial city enclosed within Detroit’s borders.
7. Brown was the son of Russell Brown, Sr., who served as general secretary and financial officer of the AME Church, and grandson of Charles S. Smith, who founded the first black business school at Wilberforce University. Brown’s brother Charles worked as an attorney, and his brother-in-law Howard Jenkins, Jr., was a Labor Department official and in 1963 was the first African American elected to the National Labor Relations Board.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.