To J. Raymond Henderson
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: June 6, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Freedom Rides
Details
King urges family friend J. Raymond Henderson, a Los Angeles minister, to give financial support to the Freedom Rides through SCLC, emphasizing the “central involvement” of its leaders in the rides.1 No reply from Henderson has been located.
Dr. J. Raymond Henderson
Second Baptist Church
Griffith Street at 24th Street
Dear Dr. Henderson:
I wanted very much to respond to your suggestion immediately, but I am sure you are sympathetic with how many other duties are crowded into my schedule at such a time as this.2
May I take a minute to describe the role of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the ‘continued’ Freedom Ride that has attracted international attention so that you can best judge as to where the funds you mentioned should be forwarded.
The Nashville students who picked up the Freedom Ride where CORE left off are directly supported and counseled by the Nashville Christian Leadership Confreence, the Nashville unit of SCLC. In Birmingham supportive help was given them by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, which is another unit of the SCLC.3 As they came on to Montgomery, which was the center of the whole Freedom Ride operation until Wyatt Walker, Ralph Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth were jailed, is still another unit of SCLC. At the end of last week Jim Lawson, staff consultant of SCLC, and C. T. Vivian were in jail in Jackson, Mississippi; Wyatt, Ralph, Fred and Bernard Lee (a student member of SCLC) were in jail in Montgomery.4 The responsibility of the three lawyers involved and the larger job of all transportation expenses and board and lodging has been borne by SCLC and/or its units.5 I have drawn this picture on a factual basis, and on this basis it would be my feeling that the funds you raise should be forwarded to SCLC.6 We do honestly admit (and have done so several times in the press) that the Freedom Rides were originated by CORE.7 This is not in any way to detract from the initiation of the project, but the central involvement since May 17th organizational wise has been SCLC oriented. However we will be constrained to abide by your decision.
Let me now turn to the very creative suggestion concerning the Freedom Ride bus of noted clergymen. I have discussed this with several people who are very close to me and conversant with the Southern scene, and everyone agrees that this is a tremendous idea and should be done.8 At this moment as you know we are under a Federal restraining order not to encourage, finance, organize, etc. any Freedom Rides through Alabama.9 Thus we would like to delay a final decision for a few days until this matter is cleared up as to how the mechanics of such a ride would be carried out.10 Please keep us advised of your decision and if it is as I have suggested you would want to know that checks and money orders can be made payable to SCLC and forwarded to the address indicated above.
Sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr
(Dictated by Dr. King)
MLK/cg
1. An article published in the Atlanta Constitution said that King and SCLC had virtually “taken over direction of the movement” started by CORE (“Sit-In Lull Won’t Last, King Warns,” 27 May 1961). King answered a similar letter for funds a month later where he acknowledged other organizations raising funds for the rides (see King to A. Lincoln James, 11 July 1961, pp. 253–254 in this volume).
2. Beginning 3 June, King began a fundraising tour throughout several cities, including appearances in New York City and Albany, New York.
3. The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, a coalition of local churches working toward various civil rights goals, was founded in Birmingham in 1956, after an Alabama court outlawed the NAACP.
4. Lawson and Vivian were two of twenty-seven freedom riders arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, on 24 May after arriving from Montgomery under police escort. The next day, Walker, Abernathy, Shuttlesworth, and Lee accompanied a group of seven freedom riders led by William Sloane Coffin, chaplain of Yale University, to the Trailways terminal lunch counter, where the last group of riders ate before departing. They were arrested for disorderly conduct and breach of peace (Claude Sitton, “27 Bi-Racial Bus Riders Jailed in Jackson, Miss., as They Widen Campaign,” New York Times, 25 May 1961; “Yale’s Chaplain Among 11 Seized in Montgomery,” New York Times, 26 May 1961).
5. The three lawyers involved were Fred D. Gray, Charles S. Conley, and S. S. Seay (Seay to Walker, 7 December 1961). In an August 1961 treasurer’s report, SCLC reported expending nearly $30,000 on appeal bonds, legal defense, and travel and aid for the freedom riders (Abernathy, “Southern Christian Leadership Conference treasurer’s report,” 1 September 1960–31 August 1961).
6. The Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee (FRCC) had established on 26 May that it would be the central organization for fundraising for the Freedom Rides (James R. Wood, Report on meeting of the FRCC, 26 May 1961).
7. See Wood, Press release, Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee formed, 24 May 1961.
8. Eighteen clergymen undertook a Freedom Ride sponsored by CORE from Washington, D.C., to Tallahassee, Florida, from 13 to 16 June. Ten were arrested after being refused service at the Tallahassee airport (“2 Bus Trips Planned,” New York Times, 13 June 1961; “Ten Freedom Pastors Land in Florida Jail,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 17 June 1961). Later, an interracial group of approximately fifteen priests affiliated with the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity were arrested on 13 September for trying to desegregate interstate facilities in Jackson (Claude Sitton, “Episcopal Group Held in Jackson,” New York Times, 14 September 1961).
9. On 2 June, federal district judge Frank M. Johnson issued a temporary injunction preventing the Ku Klux Klan from threatening interstate passengers and SCLC, CORE, and other civil rights organizations from sponsoring, financing, or encouraging the rides in Alabama (United States v. U.S. Klans, Knights of Ku Klux Klan, Inc., 194 F. Supp. 897 [M.D. Ala. 1961]). In response to the injunction, King and Wyatt Tee Walker released a statement vowing to fight the court order: “We are seeking immediate relief through our counsel to have the order removed for we believe it is an abridgement of our constitutional privilege to insist on transportation within the bounds of interstate travel unencumbered by the customs of the segregated South” (SCLC, Press release, “Integration organization answers restraining order,” 3 June 1961). On 12 June, Johnson allowed the restraining order to lapse after postponing a hearing to determine if it would be replaced by a lengthier injunction and warned that he would reinstate the order “if it becomes necessary” (“Judge Ends Curbs on Freedom Rides,” New York Times, 13 June 1961).
10. Following a 2 June strategy meeting in Atlanta with Wyatt Tee Walker and other black leaders, King hinted that freedom riders might disobey the injunction: “I think we have revealed through many experiences that we have no fear of going to jail and staying to serve time when it is necessary” (“Willing to Go to Jail: King Indicates Defiance of Judge’s Injunction,” Montgomery Advertiser, 3 June 1961). The freedom riders did not break the injunction; instead an interracial group of five resumed the Alabama-based campaign on 20 June after Judge Johnson’s injunction expired. They traveled through Alabama, stopping in Montgomery, but did not try to enter the bus terminal (“Riders Re-Enter Alabama Capital,” New York Times, 21 June 1961).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.