Honoring King from perch of experience

The Rev. Albert Sampson was gathered with ministers in a small church in Newark, buoyant about their efforts so far in organizing Resurrection City for the Poor People's Campaign, a demonstration that would place indigents from throughout the country in makeshift homes built on Washington Mall.

It was shortly after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968. Only 48 hours earlier, the ministers, members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were huddled in the same place with their mentor and spiritual leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was now in Memphis getting ready to join in a march with that city's striking sanitation workers.

The church phone rang and Sampson was summoned away to answer it. On the other line was a Sampson staff member calling from Memphis, reporting that King had been assassinated while leaving his motel room en route to the march.

''I dropped the phone," Sampson recalled. ''I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I asked him again what he just said and he said it again -- they just killed Martin. I went back in and told the others. We thought we were all going to die. We were prepared to die."

A large man with a deep baritone voice developed from nearly half a century at the pulpit, Sampson speaks softly about his friend, who in January 1966 at the now historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, ordained the Everett native ''because I asked him to." He was the only member of King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference brazen enough to seek King's sponsorship.

Though King's death devastated Sampson and other members of the conference, it emboldened them to step up to new and increasingly more difficult challenges on behalf of African-Americans based on King's teachings.

''The genius of Martin," said Sampson, ''was that he was able to move in and out of black America with ease, able to carry his message of freedom to everyone," whether they were destitute or disengaged. ''And he taught us integrity. We were not politicians and we weren't going to be used for political reasons."

The 65-year-old pastor of Chicago's Fernwood United Methodist, which he has led for nearly 30 years, is in Everett this weekend celebrating the life and legacy of the slain civil rights leader in ceremonies that began yesterday and conclude on the King holiday tomorrow.

Sampson also is here to provide testimony about the treatment of African-American employees by the forebears of FleetBoston in hearings held last week on the bank's proposed merger with Bank of America.

''I'm excited to be back," said Sampson, who grew up near Glendale Square in Everett before heeding a call to preach the Gospel. ''Every time I come back home I feel good because there are so many wonderful people in Everett and the Boston area -- family people who have values and look after one another. That's very special."

Sampson was invited to Everett by Mayor David Ragucci's ''No Place for Hate" Commission and the Zion Baptist Church to lead the weekend activities. ''I was happy to do it," said Sampson, who asked commission members to help him organize a rap session with local youngsters. ''Wherever I go, I want to start with the young people because I want to talk to them and I want to listen to them."

As a youth, Sampson learned the value of family, friends, and education. Having never met his father and learning later that his mother had been ''violated" by a Melrose doctor, Sampson and his brother and sister were raised by his mother's brother, Paul, and wife Flora, who owned a two-family home at 13 Baldwin Ave. ''There was an Italian family that lived downstairs, Connie and Frank Frangello and their daughter, Ann. We were like family. Connie would cook for us and [Flora] would cook for them. I remember Connie used to wring heads of chickens off with her hands. That taught me a lesson -- when you're in pain, stay in motion."

Sampson's adoptive mother was a foster parent who took in many children and also found time to work on the campaigns of former US senator Edward Brooke, another African-American role model. Sampson's adoptive father was an employee at Market Forge, a local metal fabricator, and later opened a barbershop.

One of his closest friends was Albert Scrappa, who remained close until Sampson left for college in 1959. ''Everybody knew Al Scrappa and Al Sampson. We did everything together."

Growing up in the city also taught Sampson to be tough if he had to be. ''I remember a kid named Louis used to chase me home after school. Usually I beat him home and was able to get in the house. But one day I got to the door and it was locked. I learned right then that it was going to be him or me. I learned to defend myself."

He also learned at a young age a lesson in economics. ''I was in love with Jean Collins in high school. I used to take her to an ice cream shop in Malden on my small allowance. Well, Jean she wasn't a one-scoop girl, she was a two-scoops and she was ready to cut me loose. Right there I started to understand economics and the value of money."

A 1956 graduate of Everett High School, Sampson has fond memories of his days in the Everett public schools, especially at Parlin Junior High School, where teachers eradicated his stuttering problem and he became the first African-American to win the school's annual oratory award. His public speaking skills were developed as a member of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Malden, where Pastor Earl Lawson, another King associate, licensed Sampson as a minister shortly after graduation.

''One Sunday we had a guest preacher and the pastor asked us all to get up and read from the Bible. I was in the back of the church when it was my turn to read. When I got near the front of the church, the preacher reached out to me and said: 'One day you're going to be a great preacher.' That was the calling."

With confidence in his public speaking skills and devotion to his faith, Sampson enrolled in Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., the oldest historically black college in the South, at the invitation of its dean of religion, the Rev. Grady Davis. While at Shaw, Sampson was president of the student body and the campus, city, and state chapters of the NAACP.

Demonstrating his belief in civil disobedience, Sampson was arrested during Raleigh's student sit-ins. It was an education as much as a protest. One of his professors insisted that if he were going to get himself arrested, he would be required to write a paper that rationalized his actions. ''She said 'Describe for me the theological basis for what you're doing.' "

As a result of his work and growing reputation on campus he was selected by his fellow students to introduce the first public accommodations bill in North Carolina history.

While at Shaw, Sampson became involved with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1962, and served as campaign manager for Leroy Johnson, Georgia's first black state senator.

After graduating from Shaw in 1963, Sampson earned a master's degree in cultural studies from Governors State University in 1973 and a master's of divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in 1977. He played a role in the campaign of Mayor Harold Washington as a member of the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment.

Sampson is president of the National Black Farmers Harvest and Business Trade Cooperative and serves on numerous boards and organizations that stress the economic development of the black community. He served as a scholar consultant for the Black Heritage Bible and is the president of the Metropolitan Council of Black Churches in Chicago.

While meeting with youngsters and other residents this weekend, Sampson is sharing his stories of King and speaking about the effects that King's work has had on their lives.

If King were alive today, ''he would have mobilized folk all over the world," said Sampson of his friend, who would have turned 75 this month. ''Especially if he and [Nelson] Mandela were together. And there would not be a war in Iraq because King and Mandela would have stopped it. Either that or all of us would be in jail."