Stanley D. Levison to the Editor of Time Magazine
Author: Levison, Stanley D.
Date: January 11, 1962
Location: New York, N.Y.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Albany Movement
Freedom Rides
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Arrests
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Threats/attacks against
Details
Levison questions Time magazine’s slant in its 12 January 1962 article that claimed student activists had accused King of “status seeking.”1 He argues that the article is biased and that King’s “unique self sacrifice” and “courage of conviction and deed” are unparalleled.
Editor of Time Magazine
Time & Life Building
Rockefeller Center
New York 20, New York
Dear Sir:
In your story on “Races” in the January 12th issue, some anonymous students are quoted as critizing Dr. Martin Luther King for status seeking in taking offices in a white building in Atlanta; for failing to go to jail in Mississippi; and for not remaining in jail long enough in Albany, Ga.2
Ordinary fairness to Dr. King would require that a reasonable balance of facts be presented. Certainly, if Dr. King is status seeking by moving his organizations offices to an all white building, it is curious for his critic to question how long he remains in jail. Status seekers do not generally go to jail, even for limited periods. Ignored by the comment is the fact that in moving to downtown Atlanta a new front of segregation was breached.
Beyond this, and of more importance, the unidentified critic seeks to discredit Dr. King for insufficient jail internment. Dr. King is the only major civil rights leader in the country who has been in jail every year in the past five years and during the past year, more than once.3
If this were not enough to establish his unique self sacrifice, it should be remembered that at the height of the tension of the Freedom Rides, after bloodthirsty gangs had brutally beaten the first group of Riders, Dr. King went to Montgomery, Alabama and was beseiged by a mob of more than a thousand, who attempted to burn down the church in which he was speaking.4 His coolness under fire was an inspiring example of leadership courage which should evoke admiration and respect from any fair minded person, uninfluenced by envy.
It is also noteworthy that as recently as last month in Indianapolis, threats were made to bomb the hall in which he was speaking (to raise money for the movement), and again he defied the terrorists and completed his speech.5 Finally, it is still fresh in memory that his home was twice bombed, once when his children and wife were asleep there.6
Ironically, there are those who have argued that Dr. King is so extraordinarily self sacrificing he must be seeking martyrdom, while now a new voice charges that he avoids sacrifice. He is indeed damned if he does and damned if he does not.
Fortunately, facts are more eloquent than words, and our nation can well be proud of a man whose courage of conviction and deed is unequalled in our day.
Very truly yours,
Stanley D. Levison
1. “Confused Crusade,” Time, 12 January 1962, p. 15. NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins also sent a letter to the editor of Time in which he dispelled rumors of discord between the major civil rights organizations, namely SCLC, NAACP, SNCC, and CORE (Wilkins to Editor of Time magazine, 10 January 1962).
2. According to the article, there was an apparent split among the “leading Negro civil rights groups,” namely between King’s SCLC and SNCC members who began to “turn against” King after he declined to participate in the Freedom Rides. The students expressed frustration that “King is far more interested in making speeches across the U.S. than in head-on action.” Tensions were further exacerbated after SCLC relocated to new offices at 41 Exchange Place in Atlanta. Although the realtor had told King that facilities in the building were desegregated, King and his staff were denied service in the restaurant on the ground floor. Other occupants of the building joined King in trying to desegregate the restaurant, but the owner refused. Additionally, the students were disappointed when in December 1961, King was arrested in Albany along with over 250 other protesters and, rather than spend Christmas in jail as he had promised, he was bailed out. For more on King’s efforts to desegregate SCLC’s new office building and the bailout following his December 1961 arrest in Albany, see King to Benjamin J. Massell, 9 June 1962, and King, Anderson, and Abernathy to John F. Kennedy, 17 December 1961, pp. 470–473 and pp. 349–350 in this volume, respectively.
3. In his 10 January 1962 letter to the editor of Time, Wilkins also defended King’s jail record: “TIME’s paragraph hand-off on Dr. Martin Luther King is typical of its weakness for the pat phrase and the neat niche at any cost. If jailings are the hallmark of leadership, Dr. King’s record has been clear.”
4. See King, Address at Freedom Riders Rally at First Baptist Church, 21 May 1961, and King, Statement Delivered at Freedom Riders Rally at First Baptist Church, 21 May 1961, pp. 227–231 and pp. 231–232 in this volume, respectively.
5. King was accompanied by a police guard during his 24 November 1961 visit to Indianapolis because threats to bomb the hall where he was speaking were sent to a local newspaper.
6. King’s home in Montgomery, Alabama, was first attacked on 30 January 1956. On 27 January 1957, a bundle of dynamite was thrown onto King’s porch, but it did not explode (see Introduction in Papers 3:10–11, and Introduction in Papers 4:6–7).
Source: SCLCR-GAMK, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Records, 1954–1970, Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.