Form Letter to Doctor
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: February 6, 1962
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Details
In this form letter, King urgently requests fellow pastors to collect an offering for the financially strapped SCLC. Due largely to fundraising appeals, SCLC went from a $6,500.78 deficit at the end of November 1961 to a $4,662.78 surplus by the end of February 1962.1
Dear Doctor:
It has become necessary that I turn to you to make a very special and personal request. An emergency has arisen that we are unable to cope with at the moment and I need your immediate help. You have been sensitive to the struggle here in the Deep South and have supported the work we are doing so loyally, that it is with reluctance that I turn to you again. However, were it not for this crisis, I’m sure this letter would not be in your hands.
As you probably know, this struggle is such that there is rarely ever a chance to prepare for each eventuality. We have been thrown into serious financial arrears by several unexpected circumstances that have conjoined to place us in this dilemma.
Fred Shuttlesworth is now in the Birmingham city jail serving a 90 day sentence growing out of the violation of the bus-segregation law. None of us ever dreamed he would actually have to serve time. We had to secure additional counsel to perfect the legal steps we are taking to free him. William Kunstler, Esq., of New York City is now in our employ on this matter.2 Mrs. Shuttlesworth is not well; to relieve both her and Fred of unnecessary anxiety, we have committed ourselves to fill his pulpit in Cincinnati in his absence.3 SCLC is responsible for all these expenses. Trial, costs for the Freedom Ride along with attorney’s fees still remain to be met. The three million dollar libel suits continue against Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery and S. S. Seay, Sr.4 The day-to-day operation must continue, but with this sudden drain on us, we cannot keep pace with program needs and field service necessary to keep the movement here in the Deep South accelerated. I would not like to see our work here bogged down because of lack of adequate funds.5
The only way I can see through this dilemma is to turn to a few of the men I know personally and who are dedicated to this movement and seek their help. I would not do this if the need were not so immediate.
Would you possible arrange to take an after-offering this coming Sunday in order that your people might have an opportunity to respond to this crisis that effects the entire Negro community. It would give us a tremendous boost if we could receive early next week at least $100.00 from the inner circle of men to whom I am writing. We do not want to lose the momentum that we have built up in the last several months.
My prayers and good wishes are ever with you.
Faithfully,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
MLK/dm
1. Ralph Abernathy, “Treasurer’s Report,” 1 September 1961–30 April 1962. King’s appeal went out to many black churches, including Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and the New York churches of allies Thomas Kilgore, Gardner Taylor, and O. Clay Maxwell, who boasted that his congregation of Mount Olivet Baptist Church could do much better than the requested $100 and enclosed $500 (Maxwell to King, 12 February 1962; Herbert H. Eaton to King, 12 February 1962; Kilgore to King, 19 February 1962; and Taylor to King, 20 February 1962).
2. Kunstler, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, worked on several cases, including defending freedom riders in Jackson, Mississippi, and Monroe, North Carolina.
3. While Shuttlesworth was in jail, his wife, Ruby, stated publicly that her husband’s imprisonment “could tax my physical stamina to the very limit” (Woody L. Taylor, “Wife of Martyred Rev. Shuttlesworth Undergoing Ordeal,” Pittsburgh Courier, 17 February 1962). During Shuttlesworth’s jailing, King, Wyatt Tee Walker, SCLC executive board members C. K. Steele and Joseph Lowery, and SCLC regional representative Otis Moss, an Ohio resident, volunteered to fill Shuttlesworth’s pulpit at Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati. Shuttlesworth had moved to Cincinnati from Birmingham on 20 August 1961.
4. See Introduction in Papers 5:25–26.
5. According to SCLC’s treasurer report, from 1 December 1961 to 28 February 1962, legal defense for freedom riders, the Shuttlesworth case, and the libel suits cost $4,309.74 (Abernathy, “Treasurer’s Report,” 1 September 1961–30 April 1962).
Source: MLKJP-GAMK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers (Series I–IV), Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.