Statement Delivered at the Ruins of Shady Grove Baptist Church
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: August 15, 1962?
Location: Leesburg, Ga.?
Genre: Film
Topic: Albany Movement
Churches - vandalism
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Details
Before dawn the Shady Grove Baptist Church, a center for voter registration activity in southwest Georgia, was bombed.1 King, who visited the ruins in the morning, returns that evening and leads a group in prayer.2 In October the FBI charged two white men from nearby Smithville with the crime.3 The following transcript is taken from a film recording.
We know that what happened here came from somebody who had the strange illusion that they could block the aspirations of the Negro people for freedom and justice by destroying property.4 And it is not just ordinary property. All property is significant [Congregation:] (Yes, Yes), but this is a church of God. (Yes, Amen) And when men will do this (Well), when men will seek to destroy the church of God, they have degenerated to a tragic level of inhumanity and sin and evil. And so we come here this evening to pray for them. I know it’s hard to pray for our enemies, and to bless those persons who curse us, and yet this is what Jesus commands us to do.5
1. “Negroes’ Church Burns in Georgia,” New York Times, 16 August 1962. There were no injuries and no reported witnesses to the fire. Leesburg sheriff R. A. Forrester and Albany fire chief E. F. Moody, an arson expert, speculated that the fire was started by lightning or faulty electrical wiring. Moody elaborated: “There is no evidence of arson and definitely no indication of an explosion” (“Fire Destroys Negro Church at Leesburg,” Americus Times Recorder, 15 August 1962). Between August and September 1962, eight black churches were burned in southwest Georgia (“Macon Church Is Destroyed by Fire,” Atlanta Daily World, 26 September 1962).
2. King pledged $500 to help rebuild the church (SCLC, Press release, “SCLC pledges special fund to rebuild dynamited church,” 15 August 1962). In an article titled “We’re Ready to Build,” published in the SCLC Newsletter in December 1962, Jackie Robinson announced: “I am happy to say to the supporters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and our many friends around the nation that we have to date received $35,000.00 for the rebuilding of the burned churches in South Georgia.” He continued: “In about ten days, I will be meeting with the pastors of the churches, Dr. King, the architects and a few other people who represent funds that have been gathered in addition to reports that the Atlanta Constitution’s fund is nearly $10,000.00 and there is possibly another $10,000.00 available through the National Council of Churches. We propose to coordinate our efforts early in December in order that these churches will be ready for use as soon as possible.”
3. On 4 October 1962, FBI agents investigating the bombing of Shady Grove Baptist Church arrested Jack P. Smith, 28, and detained Douglas Harold Parker, 18, in connection with the bombing, but a federal grand jury failed to indict the two men (“Two Charged with Burning Lee County Church Where Voter Meetings Were Held,” Atlanta Daily World, 5 October 1962; “Dispute between Hoover and King: The FBI’s Answer to Criticisms,” U.S. News & World Report, 7 December 1964).
4. In King’s article “The Terrible Cost of the Ballot” published in the September 1962 issue of the SCLC Newsletter, he said that efforts to register voters in Lee County were “tantamount to inviting death.” He also wrote that the “charred remains of the Shady Grove Baptist Church,” was the “terrible cost of the ballot in the Deep South.”
5. Cf. Matthew 5:44.
Source: CBSNA-NNCBS, CBS News Archives, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., New York, N.Y.