Dr. King in Boston . 5 | Paths to the Past

---

Personally, meanwhile, King was waging a concerted campaign to marry. Having decided upon a career in the ministry as a Baptist pastor, at least temporarily, he need to get married. In the black church of the time, and even today, an unmarried pastor was unacceptable. Marriage was a must. The pastor's wife was considered a pillar of the church and a gurantee of the pastor's stability and good character. Ministry without marriage, and marriage without children, was unheard of.

Imperious Daddy King, intent on ML joining him after graduation and eventually succeeding him at Ebenezer, had been forcefully pressing the marriage issue for some time. His plan had been to match Martin with a suitable member of elite Negro society in Atlanta, but the many attempts had all gone awry.

King, although often in conflict with his father, felt a deep connection with his family. He frequently called home, collect, to chat for two or three hours, mostly with his mother, describing every detail of his days - his dates. The pressure was on to find a wife, both from within and without.

Coretta Scott King - in a 2003 telephone interview with a Boston Globe reporter - described meeting an eager Martin - over the phone - after her number was slipped to him by a mutual friend.

The truth is, Martin and I met on the telephone.

He said, 'I like the way you talk, and I'd like to meet you.' We agreed to meet for lunch the next day at Sharaf's on Massachusetts Avenue, and he said, 'I usually make it in 10 minutes, but tomorrow, I'll make it in 7.'

On our first date he deliberately asked a question that had to do with capitalism versus communism. ... I remember I made an intelligent comment, and he said, 'Oh, I see you know something other than music.' I thought, of course I did. I was a graduate of Antioch College. I had thoughts of my own.

He said, You know, you have everything I ever wanted in a wife: intelligence, beauty, character, and personality. When can I see you again? I said I really didn't know because I had a tight schedule.

... he ways always trying to convince me I was it ... but I kept struggling with my own ambitions for a long time. I knew getting married would lead me away from performing and the direction I'd hoped to go.

We got married in 1953, and the rest is history. When I finally opened myself up to the relationship, I knew this was my direction.

... Continued from January 14, 2010. Note: the title has changed to Dr. King in Boston from Dr. King's Time in Boston. Happy MLK day!

Dr. King's Time in Boston . 4 | Paths to the Past

---

Personalism posits that the person is central, both the starting and end point, for understanding the world, indeed the universe. It believes that all moral truth begins with the absolute value of the person, the sacredness of the individual's being, consciousness and personality. Personalism is a philosophy which, applied to theology as it is in the Boston school, strongly affirms the existence and importance of the soul in each human and sentient being and reaffirms the existence and essense of God in a rather complex, nuanced and unique relationship with each person. It also is quite critical of impersonalistic theories and thought - social Darwinism, Communism, etc. Martin explained Personalism this way.

I studied philosophy and theology at Boston University under Edgar S. Brightman and L. Harold DeWolf. ... It was mainly under these teachers that I studied Personalistic philosophy - the theory that the clue to the meaning of ultimate reality is found in personality. This personal idealism remains today my basic philosophical position. Personalism's insistence that only personality - finite and infinite - is ultimately real strengthened me in two convictions: it gave me metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality.

A key to understanding King is that he was a philosopher, by far the most important of the 20th century, a philosopher who shook society to its core and changed the world. Dr. King's was professionaly trained, over many years, in philosophy. As a child he was immersed in the Baptist fundamentalism of his father's church. But he developed deep doubts and began studying philosophy as an undergraduate at Morehouse College, then continued at Crozer, University of Pennsylvania, Boston University and Harvard. His life and actions were animated by a deep love, understanding and use of philosophy. King's six books mention many philosophers and philosophical concepts. In fact his first book, Stride Toward Freedom (1958) sites 18 different philosophers just in telling the story of the 381 day Montgomery bus boycott sparked by Rosa Parks.

... Continued from January 12, 2010.

Dr. King's Time in Boston . 3 | Paths to the Past

---

Martin had explained his choice of Boston University (not his first, but the Yale Divinity School had rejected him despite being at the top of his class at Crozier) this way in his application to the School of Theology.

For a number of years I have been desirous of teaching in a college or a school of religion. Realizing the necessity for scholastic attainment in the teaching profession, I feel that graduate work would give me a better grasp of my field. At present I have a general knowledge of my field, but I have not done the adequate research to meet the scholarly issues with which I will be confronted in thie area. It is my candid opinion that the teaching of theology should be as scientific, as thorough, and as realistic as any other discipline. In a word, scholarship is my goal. For this reason I am desirous of doing graduate work. I feel that a few years of intensified study in a graduate school will give me a thorough grasp of knowledge in my field.

My particular interest in Boston University can be summed up in two statements. First my thinking in philosophical areas has been greatly influenced by some of the faculty members there, particularly Dr. Brightman. For this reason I have longed for the possibility of studying under him. Secondly, one of my present professors is a graduate of Boston University, and his great influence over me has turned my eyes toward his former school. From him I have gotten some valuable information about Boston University, and I have been convinced that there are definite advantages there for me.

Edgar S. Brightman was an influential philosopher and Christian theologian who had many followers among the Crozier faculty including King's adviser at the seminary. For decades while teaching at B.U., from 1919 to 1953, Brightman was a leader of the theological movement called Personalism or more particularly since he, B.U. and other Boston intellectuals were such a force in the development and spread of this school of thought, Boston Personalism.

Dr. King's Time in Boston . 2 | Paths to the Past

---

In early Seeptember 1951 ML, as his father called him, packed his bachelor belongings into a shiny new green Chevrolet and headed north for the thousand mile drive to Boston. The Chevy, equipped with the recently introduced Powerglide automatic transmission that he'd admired in a friend's car, was a gift from Daddy King as his father, Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., was often called by his family and flock. It was his reward for graduating at the top of his class after two years at Crozier Theological Seminary outside of Philadelphia.

Upon his arrival King, from the apartheid Jim Crow South, soon encountered the harsh reality of the segregated North.

I remember very well trying to find a place to live upon arrival in the fall of 1951 [in Boston]. I went into place after place where there were signs that rooms were for rent. They were until they found out I was a Negro and suddenly they had just been rented.

After some searching he and Phillip Lenud, a friend from Morehouse College where King did his undergraduate work, found an apartment at 397 Massachusetts Avenue across from the Savoy Ballroom. The Savoy has long ceased stomping (replaced by an apartment complex at 400 Mass. Ave.), but King's digs still stand, a few doors down from the Orange Line T station and marked with a small bronze plaque.

... Continued from January 8, 2010.

Dr. King's Time in Boston | Paths to the Past

---

Dr. Martin Luther King's time in Boston had a profound influence on him. Malcom X's life and work was forged in Boston.

Here, Martin did his doctoral studies in Christian theology at Boston University. Malcolm learned to read and created his own education while imprisoned for burglary in Charlestown and other state penitentiaries.

Both sons of Baptists ministers preached and ministered here, Martin in Baptist churches, Malcolm at Nation of Islam temples.

Both left to blaze on the worldwide stage, but both returned back to Boston again and again and always acknowledged the inluence the city had upon them.

Martin arrived in Boston in the fall of 1951 to enroll at B.U. for graduate studies just as Malcolm was finishing his intense prison self-education, receiving parole in 1952.

Martin, born on January 15, 1929, would be 81 this year. Malcolm, born May 19, 1929, would be 85. Both could be alive today and serving as important American elder statesmen of the stature of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, who's 92 this year. But both lives were brutally cut short by assasins bullets, Martin in 1965 at age 39 and Malcolm in 1965 at 40.

We'll talk about Dr. King's time in Boston in the January 15th issue of Roofscape, the date of his birthday. In the May 15th issue we'll look at Malcolm's, around the time of his.


Image ... Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Courtesy of MLK Online.