To Mrs. E. D. Johnston
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: April 30, 1962
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Details
Johnston, a white British woman married to a black man, wrote King asking for his advice for her twenty-year-old biracial son, who viewed his heritage as a “burden and source of inferiority.”1 Below, King acknowledges the “frustration” Johnston’s son must feel, noting that “it is tragic that so many of us make the mistake in life of being overly concerned with the externals of life, e.g. color, skin, hair, wealth, position.” He prays that her son will “lose himself in working for a great humanitarian cause” for “it is only when he loses himself that he will find himself.”2
Mrs. E. D. Johnston
R.R. 1 Box 102
Lakeshore Drive
St. Joseph, Illinois
Dear Mrs. Johnston:
This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of recent date. I am very happy to know that you liked my message and that you found it helpful.3
I am very much in sympathy with your son and can understand the frustration he often feels. I am sure that he could make a fine, worthwhile contribution to the cause of freedom and human dignity if he could take his mind away from himself. He must recognize that the most meaningful life is a life whose center is a fixed point outside of his own being. Someone has said that the smallest package they had seen was a man all wrapped in himself.4 To a large measure, this is very true. Every person can have the confidence that God did not make a mistake when he was created in his own individuality. The acme of the human spirit is for each of us to exploit our five talents, our three talents, or our one talent to his fullest potential.5 It is tragic that so many of us make the mistake in life of being overly concerned with the externals of life, e.g. color, skin, hair, wealth, position, when really the essentials of life are the internals: self-respect, integrity, human dignity, selflessness, etc. I pray that your son will soon lose himself in working for a great humanitarian cause. It is only when he loses himself that he will find himself.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank you for your very encouraging words concerning my work. Your words are of inestimable value in the continuance of our humble efforts. Our struggle is often difficult and the moments are often frustrating, but we gain new courage to carry on when we realize that persons of good will, such as you, are supporting us.
Very truly yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
1. In her letter, Johnston said her son feels like a “fraud” when he does not disclose his mixed-race background (Johnston to King, 17 April 1962).
2. King paraphrases from Harry Emerson Fosdick’s On Being a Real Person (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943), p. 92: “No man can be himself until he gets out of himself into work with which he identifies himself.” King had a copy of Fosdick’s book in his personal library. King also paraphrases Matthew 10:39: “He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Using the same passage for the text of his 11 August 1957 sermon “Conquering Self-Centeredness” at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King said: “I think one of the best ways to face this problem of self-centeredness is to discover some cause and some purpose, some loyalty outside of yourself and give yourself to that something” (in Papers 4:253).
3. After seeing King on television, Johnston said she felt that he had the “right approach to the race question” (Johnston to King, 17 April 1962). Johnston may have seen King’s 15 April address before the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, which was televised on local station WTTW (King, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” Address delivered at the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 15 April 1962; “Television Programs for Sunday,” Chicago Tribune, 15 April 1962).
4. Fosdick, On Being, pp. 83–84: “At the very best, a person completely wrapped up in himself makes a small package.” On the top of page 93 of King’s copy of Fosdick’s book, he wrote: “There is nothing more tragic than a self-focused, unextended life.”
5. Matthew 25:14–18: “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.” King had used the Parable of the Talents as a text of a sermon he delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1955 (King, “Opportunity, Fidelity, and Reward,” Sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, January 1955, in Papers 6:207–209).
Source: SCLCR-GAMK, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Records, 1954–1970, Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.