To Crozer Theological Seminary
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: October 27, 1947
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education
Details
King writes to Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, asking for an application and a seminary catalog. J. Pius Barbour, a friend of his father and a graduate of Crozer, probably encouraged him to apply to Crozer.1 Crozer president Edwin E. Aubrey had taught Morehouse president Benjamin Mays at the University of Chicago and spoke at Morehouse’s baccalaureate in 1945.
Crozer Theological Seminary
Chester, Pa.
Dear Sir:
After reading and hearing much about your seminary I have become intensely interested in it. I am now a senior at Morehouse College, and I hope to enter some Theological school after graduating.
I would like very much to secure an application blank and also a catalog of your school
Will you please send this material as soon as possible.
Yours truly,
[signed as below]
M. L. King, Jr.
K/w
1. J. Pius Barbour (1894–1974) received his B.A. degree from Morehouse College in 1917. At Crozer Theological Seminary, Barbour earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1936 and a Master of Theology degree in 1937. Barbour served two churches in Texas before joining the faculty of Tuskegee Institute from 1919 to 1921. From 1921 to 1931, he was the pastor of Day Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and from 1931 to 1933 of Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1933, he became pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Chester, Pennsylvania. As editor of the National Baptist Voice, Barbour gained a national reputation as one of the most prominent theological spokesmen of his generation for the National Baptist Convention.
Source: CRO, NRCR, Crozer Theological Seminary Records, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, N.Y.