Redemption

King was a highly educated scholar of theology. Abernathy was one of twelve children born to a poor cotton farmer in Marengo County, Alabama. Though he had a master’s degree in sociology from Atlanta University, Abernathy, a self-described “country preacher,” was not known for his erudition. As historian David Lewis summed it up, Abernathy’s “intellectual pretensions were modest.”²²

That said, both were Southern-born Baptist preachers. They were roughly the same age, Abernathy being three years older. Called to serve in pulpits at two leading African American churches in Montgomery, they seemed destined either for friendship or crosstown rivalry. Close friends they became. They enjoyed each other’s company and a common sense of humor. They shared a profound commitment to work together and face constant danger during their years of struggle for racial justice.

It did not seem to undercut their friendship that the chunky, sluggish Abernathy was a favorite butt of King’s pranks and ribbing. King would josh him about how snoring kept him awake all night when they were in a jail cell together.²³ Once, according to an account in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, King ushered Abernathy into a car that had a rusted-out floorboard with only a gaping hole for his friend’s feet. Sometimes the teasing had an edge. The only organization that Ralph could lead was the “National Association for the Advancement of Eating Chicken,” King once ridiculed his buddy, according to Andrew Young.²⁴

If Abernathy seemed good-natured about jokes at his expense, he had his pride. At times he exhibited jealousy at all the attention showered on King. In Oslo for the Nobel Prize ceremony in King’s honor, Abernathy had demanded that his wife, Juanita, and he ride in a limousine carrying Nobel Committee chairman Gunnar Jahn, King, and King’s wife, Coretta. The request was denied, but Abernathy protested. According to historian Taylor Branch’s account: “Abernathy appealed to King, who stood frozen with embarrassment, then tried to push his way past the security officers.” Abernathy finally relented and resigned himself to riding in a car apart from Jahn and the Kings.²⁵

On this night in Memphis, however, Abernathy betrayed no trace of jealousy. On the contrary, he launched into a glowing, twenty-five-minute tribute. “Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “too often we take our leaders for granted. We think we know them, but they are really strangers to us. So tonight I would like to take a little time to introduce you to our leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”²⁶

He went on to recite highlights of King’s biography: his birth, early schooling, college years, deep involvement in the civil rights movement, and finally his plunge into the Memphis crisis on behalf of the garbage workers. “Now all you know that Martin Luther King Jr. is a great preacher,” he said. “But I want you to know that he was prepared by God to be a great preacher.”

Warming to the theme, Abernathy continued, “His great granddaddy was a preacher. His granddaddy was a preacher. His daddy is a preacher. His brother is a preacher, and, of course, his dearest friend and other brother . . .”—here Abernathy gestured toward himself—“is one of the world’s greatest preachers. So Martin Luther King Jr. is not only a great preacher but a great leader who has the courage and ability to translate the Sermon on the Mount into lessons for our times. He’s giving Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas new life.”²⁷

In a final gush of praise that the Commercial Appeal would quote the next day, he said that, despite King’s many honors, he was not yet seeking to be president of the United States, but “he is the man who tells the president what to do.”

With applause rippling through the auditorium Abernathy paused. Then he said, “Let’s give Martin Luther King a warm welcome back to Memphis.” And the crowd lurched to its feet in a standing ovation.

Abernathy would say later that he had been “trying to sum up the greatness of the man in a way I had never done before.”²⁸ After Abernathy sat down, a minister on the podium whispered to King that the introduction could have been a eulogy. King welcomed the joke with a smile.²⁹

Chapter 15

From the Mountaintop

And God grant that we shall choose the high way, even if it will mean assassination, even if it will mean crucifixion.

—MLK, in a sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, March 22, 1959

KING SAT QUIETLY through Abernathy’s flattering introduction. Abernathy sat down, and King replaced him at the rostrum. Pausing a moment, he peered over a welter of microphones. As TV cameramen flooded him with light, his face took on a luminous sheen.

But something seemed amiss. He looked “harried and tired and worn and rushed,” observed one minister.¹ He had a sore throat and was sleep-deprived. By the end of the speech that he would deliver that night, everyone in Mason Temple would know another reason why he seemed out of sorts.

As he gazed into the vastness of the auditorium, he could see hundreds of strikers and their supporters bunched together near the speaker’s platform. Beyond that crowd of rapt faces, he could see the dispiriting sight of row upon row of empty seats.

Speaking slowly, softly, he thanked Abernathy for the kind introduction.

Then he greeted the audience, lauding them for braving the storm, coming to the rally, showing that they had the backbone to carry on with the strike.²

In the words to follow he had nothing more to say about the storm. Yet you could say that the storm still had something to say to him. Near the ceiling of the auditorium were two large window fans. They were turned off, their shutters closed. But wind gusts punched them open time and again. The shutters clacked shut each time, startling King. “Every time there was a bang, he would flinch,” Billy Kyles would recall.³

Someone finally turned on the fans to open the shutters and stop the racket, but King had to deal with other irritations. There was the numbing exhaustion from