Daddy King Read online

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my wife, Alberta Christine Williams King; my sons, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Alfred Daniel Williams King; and my granddaughter, Esther Darlene King. It is also dedicated to my daughter, Christine King Farris; my grandchildren, Alveda King Beal, Yolanda Denise King, Alfred Daniel Williams King II, Derek Barber King, Martin Luther King III, Vernon Christopher King, Dexter Scott King, Isaac Newton Farris, Jr., Bernice Albertine King, Angela Christine Farris; and my great-grandchildren, Jarrett Reynard Ellis, Eddie Clifford Beal III, and Darlene Ruth Celeste Beal.

  From the days of our courtship until her tragic death on June 30, 1974, my wife was the quiet courage by my side in all of my endeavors. My sons, whose works have spoken for themselves, moved with courage to do what they knew was right. My daughter, Christine, has worked with the legacy of her mother’s quiet courage and her own strengths to make her statement in the tradition of the values which we instilled in her.

  My grandchildren, who range from a Georgia State Representative to a high school junior, have brought me untold hours of joy and happiness in their quests for the meaning of their own lives. They are the New South for which I have worked since the days of my youth.

  Finally, this book is dedicated to my great-grandchildren, on whom the mantle will fall to continue the legacy of their ancestors.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Granddaddy: Foreword to the 2017 Edition

  Foreword to the 1980 Edition

  INTRODUCTION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  Acknowledgments

  Photos

  Index

  GRANDDADDY

  Foreword to the 2017 Edition

  The world knew him formally as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. Many knew him affectionately as “Daddy King.” I knew him simply as “granddaddy,” but all who were acquainted with his presence respected this influential man of God. As new generations of Americans become familiar with the life of my grandfather, they will better appreciate how my uncle, his son, Martin Luther King, Jr., evolved into one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century. In fact throughout my uncle’s life, my grandfather played a key role in allowing my uncle to retain the financial and political independence necessary for him to be at all times an uncompromised public servant. His life story is the traditional American narrative—starting with nothing but through hard work achieving something—but his story is made extraordinary when one factors in that my grandfather was the traditional second-generation descendent of American slaves, born to parents who were sharecroppers in the race-discriminating rural Southern town of Stockbridge, Georgia. In the midst of this hopelessness, his will to succeed and the call he felt to the ministry caused him to rise above his circumstances and not only achieve a successful life but give the world one of its greatest leaders. In his case, the saying of “hands that picked cotton now pick presidents” rings particularly true, as former president Jimmy Carter would attest to, because of the game-changing intervention my grandfather made in his 1976 presidential campaign. It is no coincidence that the greatest theologian of the twentieth century shares the name of the greatest theologian of the sixteenth century. Michael King was my grandfather’s original name, and Michael King, Jr., was the birth name of my uncle, but after traveling to Europe as a young Christian minister and learning of the philosophy and the protest reformation of the Christian church by Martin Luther, my grandfather returned to America and changed his name to Martin Luther King, Sr., and changed my uncle’s name to Martin Luther King, Jr., proof positive of the vision he held of himself and the vision he would plant inside his namesake son. Long before the historic 1963 March on Washington, Martin King, Jr., saw his father lead a march on Atlanta City Hall to protest separate water fountains for black and white citizens. This bold act in the late 1930s was as provocative and a million times more life threatening than any march in the nation’s capital would ever be. King, Sr., led the successful protest and legal fight to equalize the pay of black and white teachers of the Atlanta public schools. This would cause the Atlanta Board of Education to deny his daughter, Dr. Christine King Farris, a Spelman graduate and a holder of two master degrees from Columbia University, employment as a teacher until the intervention of then mayor William B. Hartsfield. But, like my uncle, first and foremost my grandfather was not a social activist but a man of God who provided forty-four years of devoted pastoral leadership to the parishioners of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and, last but not least, he was GRANDDADDY, a man who would deny his grandchildren nothing and moved heaven and earth to help us achieve our goals. He was the paradigm of our family’s morals and beliefs—faith in God, strength, courage, charity, sacrifice, and determination. He was the solid-rock foundation we all stood on, the one who provided the ultimate sense of security for us all. His life story is truly one for the ages and an example of how America at the low point of mistreatment of its darker-hued citizens still produced a remarkable American original such as MARTIN LUTHER KING, SR.

  —ISAAC NEWTON FARRIS, JR.

  FOREWORD TO THE 1980 EDITION

  Martin Luther King, Sr., was born free, free as the wind that blows, free as the birds that fly. Let me prove this assertion:

  At Stockbridge, Georgia, at the time, a Negro was not born human but was born a Negro—and “a Negro” meant that you were inferior and had no rights that the white man had to respect. “Daddy King,” as he is affectionately called, was born in Stockbridge, a few miles from Atlanta, in 1899. At fourteen, Daddy King left Stockbridge and went to Atlanta and got a job as a fireman on the railroad. The train went through Stockbridge, and he told his mother that when he went through the town he would blow the whistle. His mother did not want her son to be on the railroad, so she visited the Southern Railroad officials and told them that her son had put his age up and that he was not of age to be working. They let Daddy King go.

  In those days, a dishonest landowner—and there were many—cheated his tenants. In renting land, the first bales of cotton ginned, whether two, three, or four bales, went to the owner, but the cottonseed money went to the renter. Young King’s father was cheated. The boy heard the owner tell his father that he had broken even and was out of debt. Young King said to his father, “Ask him about the cottonseed money, Daddy!” The boss, incensed over this young black participating in his father’s business, told young King to shut up. King’s father told Martin Luther to keep quiet and go away. King’s father had kept an account of what he spent and he was comparing his figures with the owner’s figures. The white owner insisted that his figures were right. Young King hollered out, “Daddy, ask him about the cotton-seed money!” This was a courageous thing for a young black boy to do in Stockbridge around the close of the nineteenth century.

  Another incident is worth noting. One day King’s mother sent him on an errand in Stockbridge. A white man interfered with the errand. He wanted young Martin Luther King to do something else, but the boy refused. In those days, a Negro was to do what a white man told him to do. For this refusal, the man beat Martin Luther. When Martin Luther got home, he told his mother what the white man did to him, and she went to the white man and beat him up. If this isn’t a sign of freedom in the parents of Daddy King, I don’t know what freedom is. This is from King’s side of the family.

  The Reverend A. D. Williams, father of Alberta Williams King, displayed equal bravery. He was the first President of the National Asso
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), shortly after the NAACP was organized in 1910. The NAACP was a dangerous organization so far as the South was concerned, for it was fighting for the civil rights of black people. This was dangerous not only in Rev. Williams’s time but was dangerous in 1954 when the NAACP won its case in Brown v. The Board of Education before the United States Supreme Court.

  It isn’t surprising that Martin Luther King, Jr., the son of Martin Luther King, Sr., became the greatest civil rights leader in this century. Like his father, Martin Luther King, Jr., was born free, free as the wind that blows and free as the birds that fly.

  —BENJAMIN E. MAYS,

  President Emeritus, Morehouse College;

  President, Atlanta Board of Education

  INTRODUCTION

  The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., is affectionately known as “Daddy King.” I have known and loved Daddy King since I first met him in Ebenezer Church when I came to Atlanta to work with his son, Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1961. I have heard Daddy King preach in that church many times in the years since then, and I have also been present on numerous occasions when he was listening to his son (who was also his copastor) preach from the Ebenezer pulpit. When Martin was preaching, Daddy King would often interject, “Make it plain, son! Make it plain!”

  Daddy King’s sense of urgency that things be made plain is at the heart of this book. Here he makes plain what it was like to grow up in the South in those early days and to fight for justice for himself and for other blacks who wanted to be “free at last.” The son of a poor sharecropper in Georgia, Daddy King worked and prayed to get an education and make his mark on the history of his native land.

  As a leading Baptist minister and a civic leader, Daddy King has helped to shape the destiny of Atlanta, of Georgia, of the South, and of the nation. His voice has been heard in pulpits and other public platforms across the land, exhorting his fellow Americans to strive fearlessly and tirelessly for freedom and justice. His ministry laid a firm foundation from which his son could build the civil rights movement of the Sixties.

  Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up hearing his father preach against the injustices of a segregated society. The dynamic cadences of black Baptist oratory were in his blood. Speaking out against injustice was a way of life in Martin’s family. He took it for granted that you didn’t let people push you around. He and other Southerners had been hearing these ideas from his father and grandfather, the Reverend A. D. Williams, for many years. When Martin began his own ministry as a very young man with a doctorate in philosophy from Boston University, he might have been regarded with considerable skepticism by black Baptist pastors. Too much education was often threatening to a clergy that had been denied similar opportunity. But he was the son of the Reverend M. L. King, Sr., and this fact bred confidence that he would speak with truth and moreover would be ready to practice what he preached.

  Daddy King practiced what he preached. He saw education and economic security as absolute necessities for survival in this world and he preached it as though his law included twelve commandments which black people need to obey for these times: “Thou shalt get thy children to college,” and “Thou shalt own thy own home.”

  It was Daddy King’s deep belief in the value of education which set Martin’s educational course through Morehouse College, Crozer Seminary, and a Boston University Ph.D. Home ownership was also especially important to the son of a sharecropper. In addition to verbal encouragement, Daddy King also used his influence to assist members of his congregation in the practical aspects of getting together the required amount of money to enter the ranks of homeowners.

  Not only members of his congregation but other citizens with problems were always coming to Daddy King for assistance. Whether it was finding a job, or temporary housing. Sometimes it was trouble with school authorities, the police, or lending institutions. It could have been insulting behavior in a store or refusal of treatment at a hospital. People turned to Daddy King for help because they knew that he cared, that he was fearless, and that he would take action. In these confrontations with white power structures, Daddy King would typically start at the top. “I don’t want to waste time,” he would say. “I need to see the top man. Who’s in charge around here?”

  Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up seeing his father constantly on the battlefront, standing up for his rights and those of others, and making it plain that he was a child of God who believed in human dignity for himself and for all of God’s children. Daddy King’s every act of bravery helped to strengthen Martin’s own determination to fight fearlessly for freedom and justice.

  In these pages you will find evidence of another lifelong theme of this child of a segregated society. “Don’t hate,” was the message he constantly gave to his congregation and to the members of his family. In spite of all the indignities Daddy King suffered as a child and as a young man, and in spite of all the suffering he endured as the head of a family cut down by the death of both sons and the mother of his children (only his daughter Christine remains), he has refused to let himself be dragged down to hatred. “I love everybody,” he often says. “Nobody is going to make me hate.”

  I was present when he gathered his grandchildren together just after the funeral of his beloved wife, whom we called “Mama King” and whom he called “Bunch.” Mama King had been shot down by a psychopath in Ebenezer Church as she was playing “The Lord’s Prayer” on the organ. Daddy King had already lost Martin to an assassin’s bullet and Alfred Daniel, called A.D., in a drowning accident. Losing his life companion after these other tragedies might have broken a lesser man. But not Daddy King.

  Some of his grandchildren were asking, “Why? Why did God let this happen?” In their grief they were trying to make sense out of this latest blow to their family. They called their grandmother “Big Mama.” Through the tears the questions came forth. “Why did God let that crazy man kill Big Mama? Why do all these terrible things happen to our family? Why?”

  These were hard questions, but Daddy King did not waver in his faith. He let his grandchildren express their bitterness and cry their tears. His counsel to them, however, was clear and unequivocal.

  “I know it’s hard to understand, but we have to give thanks for what we have left. God wants us to love one another and not hate.”

  His grandchildren were asking the questions that Job asked, and Daddy King was answering them with the faith of the prophets.

  After nearly three hours of family dialogue, during which everyone had a chance to air his or her feelings—Martin and Coretta’s four children, A.D. and Naomi’s five, and Christine and Isaac Farris’s two—Daddy King led everybody in prayer. At the end, he said to them, “Now get out of here, and remember: Don’t ever stoop so low that you let anybody make you hate.”

  Martin Luther King, Jr., was the son of this giant of a man. People will understand Martin better after reading this book about his father. They are hewn from the same mighty oak. Martin grew up in the church, and his whole life was an expression of his sense of ministry—reaching out to the poor and the oppressed, the children of God who needed someone to help them get over into the promised land.

  The life of Martin Luther King, Sr., is more than a model which helps to explain the life and ministry of Martin Luther King, Jr. Daddy King’s life is a source of inspiration for all of us who join hands in brotherhood, who value integrity, commitment, and courage, and who, like Daddy King, believe that God meant for all of his children to love one another. The task for each of us is to “Make it plain!”

  —THE HONORABLE ANDREW J. YOUNG,

  Former Ambassador of the U.S. to the United Nations;

  President, Young Ideas, Inc.

  ONE

  “King!”

  I can still hear their voices breaking up with laughter and calling out my name in disbelief. Three of my buddies were driving back to Atlanta with me from Jonesboro, Georgia, where we’d all been attending the Atlanta Missionary B
aptist Association’s annual convention. While guiding my Model T Ford toward the outskirts of the city around one in the morning, I had announced, casually, the name of the young lady I was planning to marry. And this just broke them all up. Here was a green country boy—me—fresh off the farm, who hadn’t been living in the city for even a year, telling these three sophisticated young men that he was going to be the husband of Alberta Williams, daughter of one of Atlanta’s most prominent and respected ministers, the Reverend A. D. Williams, of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

  I had first seen Alberta Williams on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, a few yards from her home. At that time I was a student at Bryant Preparatory School and she was a boarding student at Spelman Seminary. Miss Williams had recently broken her ankle and was living at home while she recuperated from the fracture; it was while she was taking a walk on her crutches one day that I saw her. When I told my buddies that I’d fallen in love with Miss Williams and planned to marry her, they thought I’d lost my mind or my religion, or both!

  “Why, you can’t even talk to a refined young woman like that,” said T. L. Bracey, who was sitting next to me in the front seat. “With that rough, countrified speech of yours, you might scare the poor woman half out of her wits!”

  From the back, James Tisdale and Eddie Cooper threw in their couple of cents’ worth. “Now, King,” Tisdale chirped in a birdlike voice, “you know God doesn’t love ugly, and that’s about the worst-looking story I’ve heard all year—you marrying Alberta Williams. Get on away from here!”

  We were all young preachers trying to get started on our careers back there in the summer of 1919, and finding it harder than we ever imagined it could be.

  To make ends meet, we took little part-time jobs wherever and whenever we could find them. Mainly, though, we spent our time going to these Baptist conventions, and to revivals, baptisms, camp meetings—anyplace we might have the chance to hear some experienced preachers, or be given a chance ourselves to deliver the Word. We’d teach Sunday school and help out at prayer meetings, trying all the time to acquaint the various congregations around Atlanta with our ability and dedication.