To Ralph Lord Roy
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: August 22, 1962
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Albany Movement
Churches - vandalism
Voter registration
Details
After numerous attempts to negotiate with the Albany City Commission, King, in the telegram below, calls on clergy from the greater New York area to “bear witness to the prophetic faith of our Judeo-Christian tradition,” and “stand with the people of Albany as they strive for freedom.”1 Roy, New York pastor of Grace United Methodist Church and coordinator of the pilgrimage, assembled ten rabbis, eight Catholic laypersons, and fifty-six Protestant leaders, all of whom would be arrested leading a prayer vigil on 27 August in Albany.2
the clergy of the new york area=
care rep ralph roy metropolitan baptist church
7 ave and=128 st nyk=
the albany movement is in its second month of struggle to bring =about just reconciliation of the community’s racial groups. =the crisis here in albany is not a local situation but is a =crisis in the national life of this democracy when citizens =are denied the right to pray and picket in public, when churches =are burned for their use as voter registration centers our =nation suffers greatly.3
in behalf of the albany movement and the southern leadership =conference i extend a call to all those who would bear= witness =to the prophetic faith of our judeo christian tradition to =stand with the people of albany as they strive for freedom. ==========on monday august 27th we are asking you to come to albany and =make witness in behalf of your congregation against the segregated =way of life. your presence would be a great boost to the freedom=loving people of that community =4
martin luther king jr. ===
1. On 6 August New York pastors George W. Lawrence and Thomas Kilgore protested King’s arrest in Albany on 27 July by leading a biracial “Minister’s March on the White House” that attracted over one hundred Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant religious leaders. Although the ministers did not speak to the President, they met with assistant attorney general Burke Marshall, staff director of the Civil Rights Commission Berl Bernhard, and White House staffer Lee C. White. The ministers also scheduled a 10 August march in Albany should King be sentenced to jail. The march was canceled after King received a suspended sentence and was released from jail (“Ministers Take Albany Plea to White House, See JFK Aides,” Washington Post, 7 August 1962; Hedrick Smith, “Dr. King Set Free after Conviction,” New York Times, 11 August 1962).
2. Most of the seventy-five predominately white clergy and laymen came from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois, though Atlanta SCLC president John A. Middleton, Albany pastor Joseph Smith, and Reverend Robert Gaines of Dallas also participated. From 12–14 August, Roy joined several integrated groups attempting to worship at Trinity Methodist Church and receive service at Phoebe Putney Hospital’s snack bar. Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett accused the clergy of coming to “aid and abet the law violators of this city” and urged them to instead “clear your own city of sin and of lawlessness before you come here to try and convert us” (Pritchett, Statement on arrest of clergy in Albany, Ga., 28 August 1962). Police arrested the group and charged them with congregating on the sidewalk, disorderly conduct, and failure to obey an officer. Chicago minister J. H. Jackson called the ministers hypocrites for going to Albany, which prompted a strongly worded response from William G. Anderson who called Jackson a “disgrace, not only to the Negro people, but to the human race. He’s a Mississippi boy who’s been away so long that he has no idea what the Negro in the Deep South is up against” (“Negro Baptist Chief Assails Racial Battles,” Los Angeles Times, 5 September 1962; Albany Movement, Press release, “Albany Movement leader blasts National Baptist prexy on movement,” 13 September 1962). Ralph Lord Roy (1928– ), born in St. Albans, Vermont, received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1950 and joined CORE while a student. He received a joint M.A. from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in 1952 and was ordained in the Methodist Church that same year. In 1957 Roy became assistant minister of Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church, an African American church in Harlem, and began teaching at Mills College of Education in Manhattan. From 1960–1963 Roy served as senior pastor of the English-language congregation of Grace Methodist Church. As the Freedom Rides extended into the summer of 1961, Roy joined an interfaith group of riders and was arrested in Tallahassee, Florida. Roy was also the author of two books, Apostles of Discord (1953) and Communism and the Churches (1960). He went on to serve churches in Brooklyn and Connecticut before his retirement in 2006.
3. King refers to the 14 August bombing of Shady Grove Baptist Church in nearby Leesburg, Georgia, which had been a site for voter registration.
4. In letters sent to several of the clergy who answered King’s call, he thanked them for doing “much to raise the right moral and religious questions” in Albany. He also marveled at how each demonstrator gave of themselves “that we may walk together as sons and daughters of God one day soon in these United States” (King to Stanley Terry, 10 October 1962). Additional recipients of the form letter included Ralph Lord Roy, Marian Kuzela, and John Papandrew, among others.
Source: ACRMtZ, Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum at Old Mt. Zion Church, Albany, Ga.