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From William Robert Miller

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Author: Miller, William Robert (Fellowship of Reconciliation)

Date: May 18, 1956

Location: New York, N.Y.

Genre: Letter

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry

Details

Miller and his wife, Edith Lorraine, heard King preach “Death of Evil upon the Seashore” at St. John the Divine. Miller praises the sermon and suggests that King publish it along with others in a volume. He also responds to King’s 8 May letter.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Montgomery Improvement Association
530-C South Union Street
Montgomery 8, Alabama

Dear Dr. King:

You should have been out in the congregation at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine last night. The service was magnificent, and your sermon was more stirring than you could have imagined from the pulpit.

When we rose to sing Ein’ Feste Burg, the ancient hymn had greater power and grandeur than ever I have experienced in it before. In all, the occasion was an experience neither my wife nor I will soon forget.

Listening to your sermon, I wondered if it had ever occurred to you to publish a volume of your sermons. Some of the best and most widely read works of men like Paul Tillich and Harry Emerson Fosdick came before the public in that way, and I am sure that a number of leading publishers—Harper, Scribners, Macmillan, or the religious book houses—might consider you a good bet financially.

My main purpose for writing now, however, is to thank you for your letter of May 8. Our June issue is in page proof now, and the July one is all but made up. We do not publish in August. The manuscript deadline for the September issue is July 15, so you have almost two months in which to “put your best literary foot forward.” Knowing how heavy your commitments must be, I am sure that the amount of leeway this gives you will be welcome.

May I close with a personal note? My wife and I live in rather humble quarters, which were cozy a few months ago and have, since our daughter was born on February 20, become quite cramped. With this warning in advance, I want you to know that we would be very pleased to have you visit us informally any time you happen to come to New York.* We are not important people in any sense, but we would, I am sure, derive great satisfaction from getting to know you and your wife personally. My wife, who is descended from West Indian Negroes, never had much regard for Negroes from the American South until the Montgomery bus protest began. You have radically altered her views in the direction of respect bordering on high enthusiasm.

I shall be looking forward to seeing a draft of your scholarly article when you get to it. Until then, as Dean Pike says, May the Lord bless you and keep you.

In fellowship,
[signed]
William Robert Miller

*We live at 23 West 12 St., CH 2–1418

Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.

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