To J. Oscar Lee
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: July 2, 1962
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Details
King accepts Lee’s offer to serve on the steering committee of the upcoming interfaith National Conference on Religion and Race.1 He addressed the convention in Chicago on 17 January 1963.2
Dr. J. Oscar Lee, Executive Director
National Council of the Churches of Christ
475 Riverside Drive
New York 27, New York
Dear Oscar:
I am in receipt of your letter of June 22. Please accept my apologies for being somewhat tardy in replying. Absence from the city accounts for the delay.
I will be more than happy to serve on the Steering Committee for the National Conference on Religion and Race. Apparently Mr. Miller did not receive my letter stating my willingness to serve. I dictated it to my secretary fully four weeks ago.3 I also made it clear that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference would be very happy to serve as a participating member of the Conference. While it will not be possible for me to attend all of the meetings of the Steering Committee, I am sure that I will be able to attend some of them. When that is not possible, I will follow your suggestion and have a person from the New York area represent me.4
As I said to Mr. Mathew Ahmann in a letter the other day, I feel that this can be the most significant conferences ever held on Religion and Race.5 It is unprecedented, and certainly the possible good effects of such a conference are inexhaustible. Please keep me informed on the meetings and all developments.
Very truly yours
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
1. Lee to King, 22 June 1962. James Oscar Lee (1910–1995), born in Washington, D.C., graduated from Lincoln University (1931) before receiving a B.D. from Yale Divinity School (1935) and an M.A. from Union Theological Seminary in New York (1940). In 1946, Lee became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in theology from the Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. He served as assistant director of the Connecticut Council of Churches from 1943 to 1946. Lee joined the Federal Council of Churches in 1946 and later became director of the Department of Racial and Cultural Relations after the organization merged into the National Council of Churches. He was the only African American on the professional staff. In 1965, he became vice president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, a position he held until retiring in 1978.
2. The convention began on the 14th of January and lasted through the 17th. On the last day, King delivered “A Challenge to the Churches and Synagogues” (Program, National Conference on Religion and Race, 14 January–17 January 1963).
3. NCC president J. Irwin Miller sent King a formal invitation on 15 May 1962 and asked whether SCLC would join in the planning. In his reply to Miller, King said he wanted to be kept abreast of the plans for the conference and that he had designated Wyatt Tee Walker as liaison between the NCC and SCLC (King to Miller, 5 October 1962).
4. In a handwritten note to Wyatt Tee Walker, King suggested that either George W. Lawrence or Thomas Kilgore serve as King’s representative (Ahmann to King, 3 May 1962).
5. King to Ahmann, 14 June 1962. Ahmann (1932–2002), executive director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, also served as secretariat for the conference.
Source: MLKJP-GAMK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers (Series I–IV), Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.