From J. T. Brooks
Author: Brooks, J. T. (Alabama State College for Negroes)
Date: January 16, 1954
Location: Montgomery, Ala.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Details
Brooks thanks King for agreeing to preach at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on 24 January and suggests how he could best promote the event.
Dear M L:
We are glad that you can come to us for the fourth Sunday. I am writing to ask that you send to me a mat or a cut or a photo for the newspaper, along with some factual information on yourself. I know some things about you, but I am sure there are some others which I do not know and which I shall need to know.
Meanwhile, I would like to suggest that you plan a sermon which will not require too much dependence on a manuscript. If you can send the subject of your message and the text, it will help build up the attendance for the service … you know how congregations often are when they do not have a regular pastor.
Wonder if Alberta would not like to come down with you. Tell her we would be very happy to have her if she can make it. Let me know when to expect you and whether or not your wife will accompany you. You probably understand that you will be our houseguest.
Tell Alberta and your Dad that I saw them in the newspaper and that someday I’ll work up to them in all these good trips to Hot Springs, etc., etc.1
Cordially yours,
[signed] JTB
J T Brooks
1. Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a meeting place of the National Baptist Convention.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.