MARTIN LUTHER KING SR.
Author:
Date: Tuesday, November 13, 1984
Page: 22
Section: EDITORIAL PAGE
Ten years ago, during funeral services for his wife, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Sr. vowed to continue his work for brotherhood and for social justice in
America, despite the enormous tragedies that had stricken his family.
"How much more can a man take," Rev. King lamented, referring to the
assassination of his son, the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.; the
drowning death of another son, Rev. A.D. King; and the shooting death of his
wife, Alberta.
"I'm tired, but we're gonna go on. I'll be back here preaching on Sunday,"
he said, answering his own question and showing the courage and determination
that had enabled him to lift himself from impoverished sharecropper to a
nationally respected figure in religion and civil rights.
Rev. King had a deep and abiding faith in God and in the power of love and
friendship. He was devoted to his family and was a man of integrity. His
commitment to helping to end racial discrimination was unswerving.
He was a pioneer in the civil rights movement before his Nobel Prize-
winning son became involved. The elder King was active in the Atlanta chapter
of the NAACP in the 1930s and led several hundred blacks in a march on the
Atlanta city hall to demand voting rights. Having helped shape the nonviolent
movement that bettered the lives of black Americans, he was later
acknowledged as its spiritual leader.
Before and after his retirement from Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church,
Rev. King was involved with voter-registration drives nationwide. He said that
it was important for blacks to help elect those who would further the cause of
integration.
Rev. King's work is over. He deserves the "well done" that is said, in an
old spiritual, to be conferred by God on the faithful at the end of a long and
tiring journey. The Baptist minister died Sunday at the age of 84, no doubt
firm in his belief: "I'm not dying to get home. I'm going to sleep, and when
I wake up, I'll be home."
OSGOOD;11/12,13:08 NKELLY;11/14,08:08 EKING
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