To Daniel W. Wynn
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Ebenezer Baptist Church (Atlanta, Ga.))
Date: February 24, 1960
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests
Details
Wynn, a fellow graduate of Boston University, who occasionally served as guest preacher at Dexter, wrote King on 18 February calling himself “one of the thousands of friends who believe in your integrity and who can understand. . . the cross that you have borne since 1954.” He encouraged King to remain strong: “The Master is certainly with you as you walk through another Calvary.”1
Dr. Daniel W. Wynn, Chaplain
Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee Institute, Alabama
Dear Dan:
Thank you for your most encouraging and consoling words. I needed them very much.2 So often in my dark and dreary moments I end up asking concerning my involvement in the civil rights struggle, “Is it worth it?” At other times I find myself asking, “Are you able?” In the midst of all of this an answer always comes back stating: Yes it is worth it and you are able if you will only realize that some individual pain is necessary for any ultimate social gain and that the cause which you represent is destined to win. So I go on living by the faith that God lives. They that stand against Him stand in a tragic and an already declared minority. But they that stand with Him stand in the glow of the world’s bright tomorrow.
Best wishes to all of the members of your family.
Very sincerely yours,
[signed] Martin/b
Martin L. King, Jr.
1. See also Wynn to King, 7 June 1955, in Papers 2:561-562, and King to Wynn, 27 January 1959.
2. Coretta King recalled that the tax case “caused Martin more suffering than any other event of his life” and that he worried that “many people will think I am guilty” (My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 185).
Source: DWW-ARC, Daniel Webster Wynn Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, La.