From Frank L. Stanley
Author: Stanley, Frank L. (Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity)
Date: March 22, 1956
Location: Louisville, Ky.
Genre: Letter
Details
The editor of the Louisville Defender informs King that his 18 March sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church will be published in his newspaper.1 Stanley was in Montgomery to cover the trial for the newspaper and convey Alpha Phil Alpha's support for its fellow member. Stanley, fraternity general secretary James Huger, and southern vice president Lewis O. Swingler presented a check for $1,000 to the MIA at a 20 March mass meeting.2
Reverend M. L. King, Jr.
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
Montgomery, Alabama
Dear Brother King:
Here is a copy of your sermon as copied by me. I plan to use it in a feature I am doing on Montgomery.
If at all convenient, send me by return air mail special a photo of you and wife or alone, or in a group. I am assuming that you have prints of some of the many photos made of you. I want to use them to help raise some money for the cause that you are so nobly fighting.
It was a source of unlimited inspiration to be with you during the beginning days of your trial. Your father and I journed back to Louisville together and I had the opportunity of meeting your fine mother in the Atlanta airport.
Alpha will be sending you additional sums. The least we can do is to supply financial and moral support to you, our champion of human decency. I know that your conviction by Judge Carter neither surprised nor unnerved you. If you have made any public statement on the outcome of the trial, please send me a copy immediately.
What you are doing is not only a tribute to your great leadership in Montgomery, but it will forever remain the outstanding example of the most intelligent and effective resistance to bigotry known to our people.
May God keep you erect as you carry out His work where it counts the most.
Fraternally,
[signed] Frank
Frank L.Stanley,
General President
Enclosure
1. See King, “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” 29 March 1956, pp. 207-208 in this volume.
2. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Newsletter 5, no. 4 (23 March 1956).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.