Responding to King’s letter of inquiry, Charles E. Batten of Crozer Theological Seminary, who served the small Baptist seminary as registrar and librarian, introduces King to Crozer and invites his application.1 Batten discusses features of seminary life that would be significant for King, such as the “personal contact” and “informality” the school encouraged among faculty and students.
My dear Mr. King:
King writes to Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, asking for an application and a seminary catalog. J. Pius Barbour, a friend of his father and a graduate of Crozer, probably encouraged him to apply to Crozer.1 Crozer president Edwin E. Aubrey had taught Morehouse president Benjamin Mays at the University of Chicago and spoke at Morehouse’s baccalaureate in 1945.
Crozer Theological Seminary
Chester, Pa.
Dear Sir:
During the summer after his sophomore year at Morehouse, King wrote this letter to the editor of Atlanta’s largest newspaper.
On 13 April 1944, in his junior year at Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School, King, Jr., won an oratorical contest sponsored by the black Elks. With the runner-up at Washington High, Hiram Kendall, he won the right to represent the school at the statewide contest held at First Baptist Church in Dublin, Georgia. Kendall was a runner-up at the state contest.
This shortened version of chapter six of Stride Toward Freedom appeared in the September issue of Fellowship.
Handwritten seminar notes.
King’s handwritten lecture outline for his course on social philosophy at Morehouse College.
On 10 July 1959, Christian Century editor Harold Fey asked King to write an article for “How My Mind Has Changed,” a series of “statements by significant thinkers” reflecting their intellectual and spiritual development over the previous ten years.
