To Milton A. Reid
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: January 12, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Brown v. Board of Education
Civil Disobedience
Nonviolence
Details
Since June of 1959, Prince Edward County, Virginia, officials had kept their public schools closed to avoid desegregation. In a 10 January 1961 letter to King, Reid, president of the Virginia Christian Leadership Conference (VCLC), discussed his organization’s plans for a sit-in in Congress to draw national attention to the closed schools.1 Reid asked King if SCLC would join other national organizations in sponsoring the event.2 In his reply below, King notes that VCLC’s plans violate SCLC bylaws, adding that some organizations might take “offense” to being contacted by a “‘unit’ of our organization.”3 Despite King’s concerns, Reid received permission from SCLC to coordinate the demonstration, but it was eventually canceled.4
Dr. Milton A. Reid
Virginia Christian Leadership Conference
236 Harrison Street
Petersburg, Virginia
Dear Dr. Reid:
Thank you so very much for your letter of January 10. I am pleased to know that our Virginia Conference is really “moving.”
As you probably know, Wyatt and I had given some serious thought and concern to the Prince Edward situation (along with some other areas) prior to the organizational meeting of VCLC in November. It was our thinking then, as it is now, that, if the people of Prince Edward were willing, and our Virginia affiliates were willing, SCLC would sponsor this project with VCLC serving as the co-ordinating agency on the local scene.
My grave concern at this moment is that we function according to the demands of our organizational structure. I refer you to the section on Administrative Function of the “General Program” of SCLC adopted by the National Board in Shreveport, October 11, 1960. It determines that “…The State Conference will act as liason with the national office in the execution of national program, state program, and the distribution of publicity.…” The fund-raising of the State Conference is limited to funds necessary to maintain the State Conference office, e.g. supplies, stationary, etc.
I do not feel it would be proper for a State unit of SCLC to make this kind of proposal for sponsorship to national organizations. Some of them might take offense that they are being contacted by a “unit” of our organization.
I am leaving today for an extended speaking tour in the Far West. I will have Wyatt get in touch with you immediately to work out some suggestions as to how we might best proceed. I trust his judgment very strongly in matters like these.
Let me say in closing how very proud I am that you are doing such a great work for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. My prayers shall follow you.
Very truly yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
MLK.m
CC: Mr. Wyatt Tee Walker
208 Auburn Avenue, N.E.
Atlanta 3, Georgia
1. The Prince Edward schools were among the five districts consolidated into the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483) case. Prince Edward County’s board of supervisors closed the county’s public schools rather than obey a federal court order to desegregate them. The proposed sit-in was one of the VCLC’s first large-scale activities. The demonstration, which was planned for 17 May 1961, the seventh anniversary of the Brown decision, was to include 500 black and white students from Prince Edward County (“Whites Expected to Shun Edward Public Schools,” Washington Post, 8 September 1964; Milton A. Reid, “President’s report,” May 1961). Milton Annias Reid (1930–2010), born in Chesapeake, Virginia, received his B.A. (1955) and M.Div. (1958) from Virginia Union University. He later completed doctoral studies at Boston University School of Theology (1980). He served as pastor of First Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia, from 1957 to 1966. In November 1960, Reid helped establish VCLC and became its president until his resignation in late 1962. Reid participated in planning Pilgrimages of Prayer for Public Schools held in Prince Edward County (1961) and in Richmond (1962). He remained an active member of SCLC through his work against segregation in Danville, Virginia, in 1963.
2. In addition to SCLC, Reid invited sponsorship from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), CORE, NAACP, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), National Beauticians Association, and the National Council of Negro Women (Reid to King, 10 January 1961).
3. In his reply to King, Reid apologized to the SCLC president for this “national embarrassment” and suggested that an SCLC orientation would make clear the function of state conferences in relation to the national organization (Reid to King, 25 January 1961). Referring to himself as “your lowness,” Reid also sent a formal apology addressed to “Your Highness,” Wyatt Tee Walker, executive director of SCLC, expressing his willingness to work with SCLC and making clear that VCLC would act under the authority of the national organization (Reid to Walker, 25 January 1961).
4. In a confidential memo to all participating organizations, Walker wrote that SCLC could not fully sponsor the demonstrations due to budgetary considerations and since this was a “Virginia situation,” it was “logical” for VCLC to coordinate it (Walker, Memo to Participating Agencies, 1961). VCLC canceled the demonstration after U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy announced on 26 April that the U.S. Justice Department would become a plaintiff in the Prince Edward County school desegregation case (Reid, “President’s report”). Almost three years later, residents of Prince Edward County were still trying to settle disputes in the courts over whether or not the state was required to allocate funds toward public education. In 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Griffin v. Prince Edward School Board, 377 U.S. 218, that Prince Edward County had to reopen its public schools on an integrated basis, and a few white children joined an estimated 1,400 black children when the schools reopened in September 1964 (“Virginia Negroes Return to School: Public Education Resumes in County after 5 years,” New York Times, 9 September 1964).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.